This is Halloween
by Amaranth33
Summary: The mysterious ruler of Halloween, known as Athena, is in need of help from the guardians when Pitch Black starts rising to power using the fear experienced during Halloween season. Discovering that she is a guardian and much older than she seems the guardians learn more about both the mysterious loner of Halloween as well as their enemy, things they never would have expected.
1. Chapter 1: The Meeting

Chapter 1 The Meeting

Athena sat on her broom looking up at the moon and talking to it. Talking to the Man in the Moon to be exact. Asking him to gather all five Guardians together because Pitch was gaining power again. This time using her time of the year, the time of Halloween where it was fun to experience fear. Every year humans would come up with more horror movies that had a wider range of scare tactics so that at least one movie would be scary for those harder to scare and give children nightmares without Pitch being involved.

Pitch had gained power this way as well as come to learn how to use the fear of everyone, not only children, and he was always present around Halloween but now was figuring out the best ways to make the most of it and storing the energy and power as the years went by.

"I need you to call the Guardian's together. Halloween is coming up and I need help in keeping the children safe. Especially because the children can see the Guardians, they can talk to the kids." She said to him. Moony acknowledged the request and did not question her but did ask, _Will you be meeting them?_

"Yes." She replied before disappearing. She had hoped that she would never have to involve herself in matters between Pitch Black and the five Guardians but it seemed that she would have to stop running from the past and face it to protect the children of the world.

Wherever the five Guardians were, when it was nighttime they all received a message from Man in the Moon to meet in Transylvania, Romania, showing a castle that they all knew as the famous (infamous?) castle of Count Dracula.

"Transylvania? Why?" Jack questioned but received no answer. He sighed and jumped from the roof he had been hanging out on and flew off to Europe.

"Transylvania? Really mate? Alright then." Bynnymund said stepping on the ground as a hole opened up and he jumped in.

Sandy, Tooth and North didn't question it and made their way to the castle, all appearing at about the same time.

"Everyone being asked to come here. Does anyone know what is going on?" Jack asked when he landed.

"No." They replied. Sandy shrugged.

"I believe I can answer that question." A female voice with a mild Greek accent said from the shadows of the large hall. There was a light swoosh and torches lit to reveal a room that was exactly how one would see a perfect Halloween party. A girl who looked like she was around seventeen or eighteen stood there with a broom and wand in hand. She had short blonde hair, pale skin, big blue eyes and a cute black and orange witch costume with black boots.

"Ah! Athena how are you doing?" North asked with a smile.

"Hello North. I have had better days. And yourself?" She replied.

"Been busy." He replied.

"Why are we all here?" Bunnymund asked.

"I need your help in protecting the children this Halloween." She replied.

"The Man in the Moon sent us to help you? Why?" Tooth asked.

"Because I need the help and I asked him to summon you all. He is the only one you listen to. Pitch has been gaining power from my holiday for a long time now and has recently been finding new ways to gain power faster, most likely from learning himself what fear is like to experience. This is very different from last time. this time you won't be able to defeat him the way you did before." She answered. A lump formed in her throat as she spoke but hid her feelings and swallowed it down.

"What do you mean? He loses power when there is no fear." North replied.

"But this is Halloween. Fear and being scared is one of the first things you think of on Halloween. You can't stop that at this time of the year. We have to do it by force and overpower him." She explained.

"If what you say is true then we should handle it as the Guardians, you continue with your little holiday of candy and costumes, we'll handle it." Bunny replied.

"Oh please." She muttered with a roll of her eyes.

"You don't think much of us do you? Do you want to be a Guardian?" Tooth asked.

"I am, just a different kind than you." She replied.

Athena noticed Sandy making symbols above his head of an arrow at Athena, then hands creating a small man that looked a lot like Man in the Moon, however the other's didn't notice.

"How did you know that Sandy?" Athena asked him. He pointed to his head and mimed sleep.

"You know this from my dreams?" She asked. He nodded with a smile.

"You are something Sandman." She replied.

He smiled. Still the other Guardians seemed very distracted by the place. Athena rolled her eyes and said, "So will you help me? If we can't stop Pitch before this Halloween I'm afraid he'll been virtually unstoppable and September is almost over, we're on a deadline."

"If you know all this then why didn't Man in the Moon call us sooner? Or why didn't you deal with Pitch sooner?" Jack asked.

She was silent for a long time, thinking back on the time that she did indeed try. "I tried, but we know each other too well and it was only recently that I discovered just how strong he really was getting and would be after this Halloween." She explained.

"You know each other too well?" Jack asked skeptically and asked, "How often do you see Pitch?"

"Not very often since you all started coming around and keeping him at bay but I am much older than I seem. I'm even older than Man in the Moon and a little younger than Pitch." She responded.

Sandy started making the symbols again since they noticed him now. She would rather they didn't know but she decided that it was only fair.

"What? Slow down Sandy." North said. He sighed and tried again. Athena sat on a chair and observed while sending the broom and dustpan to go sweep the entrance hall and other things came to her for more instructions. The castle would be opening for tours soon so the place needed to be ready for the humans.

"Athena...Uh holds?" North asked. They continued their guessing game until Jack got it.

"Athena created Man in the Moon?" He asked. Sandy smiled and nodded.

"What? That's absurd." Bunnymund replied.

"What makes it absurd? The simple thought that the person you seek advice and guidance from, the one you take orders from was actually created by some girl who is forever a young adult ruling over Halloween and uses magic? Do you forget that I am the Guardian of Imagination and Creation? I was made the first Guardian to help the humans but found that they needed more than imagination and the means to create. They need help to remember their childhood and important things. They need their memories protected. They needed dreams, wonder, hope and fun. But I'm not the best one to judge who is worthy of such responsibility so I created someone to help me.

I thought of a being, a person who could make such judgments and give them the powers and responsibilities that fit them best and gave such power to Man in the Moon and soon he created other spirits who were worthy but not necessarily ready or fit to be guardians but can always been there to help when needed and so on and so forth. The rest is, as you say, history." She explained.

"If you created the Man in the Moon then how did you come about? Vhat do you know about Pitch?" North asked.

"I was granted my gifts by a higher power as was Pitch when he was first given the responsibility to keep the darkness and nightmares in line. The darkness tricked him and consumed him. Anything else I know about him is not important to stopping him now." Athena replied.

"Wait he was consumed by the darkness?" Jack asked.

Yes. He was given the responsibility to guard the darkness and keep the creatures of darkness at bay. But then they tricked him into letting them out, they consumed him making him what he is today." She replied, sounding bothered by this and summoned some cleaning supplies and sent them off to clean the windows.

"You knew him before he was Pitch." Tooth stated.

"That isn't important. Can we please get back to the topic at hand? Keeping him from gaining more power before Halloween?" Athena said in a dismissive tone, clearly not wanting to discuss it.

_Wonder what Pitch was like before and what kind of history the two have had._ All of them thought. Even Man in the Moon had wondered this before but he never asked Athena about it after the first time. He had quickly learned that Pitch was a touchy subject when it came to Athena. Surprisingly it was the same for Pitch when MiM had mentioned Athena.

"Once this is over, if we succeed, I will be continuing a plan, hopefully if I succeed then you'll know what Pitch is like without being corrupted. It's a long shot but if it doesn't work and you're still curious-oh don't give me surprised looks I know you're all curious all of you are trying to imagine it-then I'll consider telling you." She answered, noticing their surprised expressions when she guessed correctly, well it wasn't actually guessing because she knew that they were imagining it and found their interpretations rather amusing.

"So what do you need us to do Sheila?" Bunny asked.

"Until we can find Pitch or until he comes out of hiding all I ask is that you keep a look, or ear, out for trouble. Especially these parts of the world." She indicated her own large globe with lights on it. She pointed her wand and certain parts of the world turned orange. About half of Europe, all of the United States and Canada and a lot of South and Central America and then a few various places around.

"I know Tooth and Sandy are busy all the time so just keep a look out as you work if you can and call me if you need help, that goes for anyone, if you need help call me. Everyone else just move around whenever you can to either find Pitch or protect the kids and young adults." Athena explained while drawing out paths.

"How are we supposed to call you?" Bunny questioned.

She thought about it and imagined five pumpkin charms that they could use for communication to each other or her and sent them out.

"They can transmit audio, video and varying signals if you can't call anyone. All signals alert everyone. Red for emergency, black for alerting of sighting Pitch, green is in need of back-up and yellow is children in danger. If someone uses red I strongly recommend everyone going to help if you can. On the other side is a button to represent other guardians, press any and all that apply to which guardian you are going to if more than one are in need of help." She explained.

"Brilliant. Do they have to be pumpkins though? Not that I have anything against pumpkins or anything." Jack asked.

"If you want the design to change then just imagine a new design for it, but only I can change the functions." She replied rolling her eyes.

They did just that, Tooth's changing into a pearly white tooth, of course. Bunny's a colorful egg; North's one of those Russian dolls that have a smaller version of itself on the inside but it looked like it was made of ice. Sandy didn't change his much, just put a chain on it to carry easier while Jack's changed into a snowball.

"If you accidentally throw that at someone I will make you do the most boring task that Bunnymund can think of." Athena said to him.

"Guess it does look too much like an actual snowball." He said so he changed it again to a snowflake and clipped it to his staff.

"Happy?" He asked.

"Yes thank you." She replied satisfied.

"Well I have places to be and things to do thank you for the help, we're done for now I think." She replied

**My corner:** This is actually my first Rise of the Guardians story but about halfway through the second chapter I looked at it and was appalled by the nonsensical crap I had written so I started over with other ideas and am now generally happy with it and the way that it is going. I'm not sure the rate at-which I will be updating but...yeah hopefully it'll be pretty stead. Sooo yeah here is the first story that I had started for RotG but the second one posted :)


	2. Chapter 2: Yin and Yang

Chapter 2 Yin and Yang

"What do you all think?" Bunny asked his fellow guardians. They had met up at the North pole after leaving Dracula's castle. Despite Man in the Moon confirming what Athena said is true they were still unsure of the situation as a whole.

"This could get ugly really fast." Jack said bluntly.

"I agree. If Pitch really is as strong as Athena thinks then this will be hard." Tooth replied.

"Not to mention the relationship the two seemed to have had." Bunny said.

"What do you mean?" North asked.

"Based off her reaction they had some kind of relationship. Close too if I had ta guess, but because of what happened to Pitch it's obviously become a sore spot for the gal." He responded.

"Hard to imagine Pitch being any different than he is now." Jack muttered.

"Because this is all we know him as." North answered.

"If Athena doesn't think it's necessary to know about their history then we shouldn't dwell on it too much. We should focus on the children like she said." Tooth said. Sandy nodded in agreement. They finished their meeting before Tooth and Sandy headed off to their own work while Bunny, North and Jack did as Athena asked and kept an eye out for trouble.

Athena sat on her broom talking to Moony, as she liked to call him. There wasn't much Man in the Moon could do from where he was but he was always able to give good advice when she asked for it.

_The guardians are capable. You have nothing to worry about._ He said in her mind.

"I'm sure they are, you chose them and they defeated him before. I'm sure we can overpower him." She replied and laid back on her broom, looking up at the night sky.

_Then what is bothering you? Pitch himself?_

She shifted so that she was laying on her stomach and put her hands under her cheek like a pillow and sighed, "Yeah. I guess so."

_You do not like having to face him. To fight him._ He stated.

"I have to. The magic is not ready to even hope to attempt at dispelling the darkness from him. To protect the children I have to suck it up and fight." She replied.

_You two were close weren't you?_

"I like to think that we were, but that's not important. I'm sorry for wining to you like this. After all these years about coming to you for advice and venting I'm sure you're sick of me." She said in a light tone to change the subject.

_ Part of having friends is listening and giving advice. You are there for me and have always been just as I will always be here for you._ He replied.

"How is it that I managed to create someone as awesome as you?"She asked.

_ You have asked a similar question before. Why do you feel the need to ask that? You are a fitting person for your job. You have been doing it well for 3,000 years. Even goddess Athena herself admitted that you are fitting to be named after her._ Moony replied.

"Couldn't even stop the darkness and evil from consuming Pitch, now I couldn't even stop him from using my own holiday to gain power. I don't feel very fitting. But enough of my stupid self-loathing, there are eight hundred and sixty-four horror movies being played right now so it's time to go keep the peace and find some nightmares and a Boogyman." She replied sitting up and becoming her upbeat self once again. If she did manage to dispel the darkness from Pitch then she would never let him live that down. That hilariously ridiculous name that the mortals had given him.

She flew off onto her broom and sent out various magical servants, usually disguised as Halloween decorations or pumpkins, to watch over areas she was not in as she flew around herself. She called North, Bunny and Jack, asking them to travel around and keep an eye out as well.

Almost immediately after did North contact her. There was no message, only coordinates to follow so she immediately created a magic portal and appeared in San Francisco, right outside of a large haunted house sort of thing. At her feet on the street was North's communicator and high above a battle was commencing. She pressed the button to call the others in right as a nightmare horse swooped down.

She ducked out of the way and shot the first spell that popped into her head causing the black sand to change into a burst of butterflies before jumping onto her broom and soared upwards to help North while on the way firing one spell after another, most of the time the nightmares burst into a group of bats or were changed into candy.

_Well at least the kids below will get candy out of this._ Athena thought and noticed out of the corner of her eye a blast of ice blue and knew it was Jack joining the fight.

There were too many nightmares, much more than Athena had suspected, the haunted house was clearly a beacon of fear.

"We have to lure them away from this place!" Athena called to North as she flew over. Bunny was throwing eggs and boomerangs from the sleigh while North used his swords to cut them up.

"That'll be a problem considering they are just hanging out here and gaining strength. The only way to lure them away is to get Pitch away from here." North shouted back.

"Where is he?" Bunny asked.

"Inside I suspect." He answered.

"Can you two try and keep these things at bay out here?" She questioned.

"We'll do what we can, Sandy and Tooth are on the way as well." North replied.

"Good, Jack and I can take the fight to Pitch." She responded and flew off to get Jack before they landed on the roof and headed inside to find him. It wasn't very hard really. The haunted house was called the Nine Gates of Hell and the point of it was you pay a certain amount of money to get in, usually older children, teenagers and young adults participated, and each floor represented one of the gates of hell and if someone could get through all nine floors then they won a prize and got their money back.

No one so far has been getting past the fifth floor and most dropped out on the fourth, it was likely that that is where he would be.

Something that felt like metal and the size of a pole hit Athena and knocked her into a wall of one of the empty dark rooms.

"Finally decided to get help from your fellow Guardians I see. Not strong enough to fight me yourself?" The disembodied voice of Pitch taunted from all directions.

"I'm not afraid to admit when I need help, but I'm not the one hiding in the shadows." Athena countered and with a flick of her wand an arc of orange sparks lit up the room, chasing away the shadows and making Pitch visible. Jack shot a charge of ice from his staff from behind Pitch, who whirled around in time to block it with dark sand making a sculpture of ice and black blended together.

"If you weren't corrupted by the darkness then you two could make stuff like that together all the time and sell it, that is a really cool sculpture and it was done in a split second." Athena commented approvingly.

"Is now really the time for that?" Jack asked her.

"There is always a time to admire art." She countered and flicked her wand, knocking Pitch out of the way saying, "Move hun you're blocking my view."

Pitch hit the wall with a hard THUD. He leaned against it for support and glared at Athena while she walked around the black and blue ice to see it from all angles.

She started to break off spikes, seemingly not paying attention.

"Athena!" Jack warned and a flash of ice blue went over her head hitting Pitch right in the face.

"Good one." Athena commented and turned right as Pitch swung the large black scythe at her. She ducked and the scythe sliced the sculpture she was previously admiring.

"What a shame to destroy something so cool." She replied but used the spikes of ice in her hand and changed their shape into what looked like an icy blue and black cannon that sat on her shoulder and fired knocking Pitch out the window and onto the ground outside.

"Can I have one of those?" Jack asked. She tossed the surprisingly light weight cannon to him and said, "Can only be used three times before the darkness corrupts it so you have two uses out of it."

He nodded in understanding and flew off firing at the nightmare horses in the sky once and then twice, taking out about half of them while Athena landed about twenty feet away from Pitch.

"You really don't remember much from before do you?" Athena asked. The most recent time she faced him she didn't have any time to ask questions. The first time she had seen him after being corrupted he didn't remember anything at all, now he remembered certain points but didn't possess all of the same thoughts and feelings.

"I don't care about who I was." He replied coldly.

"I know you don't." She answered and created a large mallet swinging it at him. He jumped out of the way and created his black scythe swinging back. She caught the blade and forced it from his hands to the ground. She then swung again and sent him flying. He caught himself with the black sand and joined the fight in the sky.

Athena hopped on her broom again and flew up into the dark night in the midst of black cloud-like sand with sounds of fighting all around.

"Where did Pitch go?" She asked the closest Guardian to her, Sandy, who shrugged with a question mark over his head. She cursed under her breath and joined into the fighting until it all suddenly stopped. The nightmare sand gathered together into a large circle surrounding them all before disappearing through a portal.

"The fight was fun at first but now you're all tired and making it boring so I'll take my leave until we meet again." Pitch said in an amused tone. Athena flew at the portal to catch him but he disappeared through the dark portal with his nightmare sand and was gone, the portal closing right before Athena got to it.

"Dang it!" She said frustrated.

"He's much stronger than ve had anticipated." North commented as everyone gathered at his sleigh.

"That's what happens when he hangs out at a place like that it seems." Jack commented indicating the nine floor haunted house.

"Places like that don't normally open until the first week of October, that's still a week away. It must have been a test run." Athena replied.

"We do have one advantage with this though." Tooth said.

"What's that?" Bunny asked. Sandy help up one finger and then indicated the rest of us.

"There's still only one of him and six of us, not to mention Tooth's helpers when they are available. Pitch may be stronger but he can't split himself or be in more than one place at a time. If we can cut short all of his plans to gain more power then I think we can stop him before Halloween." Athena replied.

"Unless you get distracted every single time something cool appears." Jack said in a light-hearted tone.

"I'm not the Guardian of Imagination and Creation for no reason and I can't help if I get temporarily distracted sometimes." She said with a shrug.

"Must be kind of hard being a guardian with two centers." North said.

"Not really." She replied and her body started to change, she shrunk and few inches and split into two different people. They looked exactly alike with the same face, outfit, and hairstyle but one had purple hair, eyes and a purple dress while the other had light orange hair, red eyes and a red and orange version of the same dress. The two girls stood back to back and held hands, one had a lower voice while the other's tone was higher.

"When the two centers are separated and working alone I split into two different people." The purple girl said, holding a purple ball that made different shapes.

"It was a very odd thing at first but eventually I managed to get use to it. It's a rare thing for the two to be used separately but when they are I split." The girl in red and orange added.

"Imagination. Or you can call me Yang." The girl in orange said.

"Creation, or Yin." The girl in purple added and the two slapped back together into one person, Athena back to normal.

"Crikey that was weird." Bunnymund commented.

"It isn't very different from Tooth and the Baby Tooths." Athena replied with a shrug. She leaned against her broom as it started to float away, "Well I have things to do, places to ready for tours, like Salem. I don't think the rest of the night will have many problem, oh and North you dropped this."

She tossed North his communicator and flew off.

"She's weird." Bunny commented.

"Bunny!" Tooth scolded.

"No he's right, I know I am and I pride myself in it but you know Bunnymund it's very rude to talk about someone behind their backs." Athena added from behind them.

"Busted." Jack said with a smirk.

"Have a nice night." Athena said with a wave before actually flying off into a magic portal of her own.

_That seemed to go well. You two did not kill one another._ Moony said as Athena flew over Massachusetts.

"True but I would love to forget the way he did. It'd make things so much easier." She replied.

_Then you would have no desire to expel the darkness from him._ He pointed out.

"You're right, like always." She responded.

**Mah little corner:** Okay here is chapter 2 (obviously). Thank you to those who have already started reviewing (RaistIsHot, Solstice White, and NineTimesNamed), you are all awesome! To Solstice White: I don't think I've ever had a review like yours for any story before, it made me so happy that I actually started to cry after reading it several times over. Thank you!

Random note, I am aware of how Man in the Moon, Pitch and Sandy originally came about from the books but for Man in the Moon (to those who read the books) it is obviously different and for Pitch I am keeping certain parts of his past but also work shopping it to fit my view for the story so there will be parts here and there that are similar to the book but also from my own mind and the movie because this is based off the movie...sooo yeah...


	3. Chapter 3: Kozmotis Pitchiner

Chapter 3 Kozmotis Pitchiner

Athena was different from the other Guardians who didn't need to sleep much. She needed to on a regular basis because of how much she used magic. Besides she liked to and usually her dreams were various memories, good usually but some disturbed her, like when she was human and the Romans were starting to take over or when she first saw Pitch after the darkness had consumed him. This time though she dreamed about the first time she had met him. That time people called him Kozmotis Pitchiner.

A much younger Athena wandered through the forest, she was about twelve or thirteen, close to marrying age but too independent for that, besides she had no one to make her, her mother recently died from grief and illness because of her father's death in the war against the rising Roman Empire.

She had heard rumors of a prison that held the creatures of fear and darkness so no one went into the forest in fear of it, however Athena didn't care whether there really was such a place or not, she liked exploring too much and there was an empty cave where she kept most of her projects and where she worked. It wasn't right for women to be doing such things like building. The only things they should be doing is weaving and making clothes and small crafts, not inventions and weapons. Athena liked doing both.

She took a different route to the cave as she collected materials needed and found a new cave, more like a cavern and became curious and wandered in cautiously.

Kozmotis walked around the perimeter right outside the prison and stopped to listen, hearing footsteps at the entrance to the cavern and then a whistle, the whistle not from a bird but a human. He went off to inspect who they were and what they were doing there. He stood in the shadows and saw a girl, around twelve or thirteen cautiously looking around. She carried a torch but it was plain that she knew full well that many caves and caverns could have unseen holes and other dangers.

What he was wondering was why in the world was this young girl out in the forest? Alone no less.

She whistled again and listened, most likely to get an idea of how deep the cave went but it was hard for her to tell. Kozmotis decided to whistle back causing her to jump, startled and called, "Is someone there?"

He walked out into the light and asked, "What are you doing here?"

"I could ask you the same question." She replied. She was a small girl but didn't seem afraid at all which surprised Kozmotis. It was odd for a female to be out in the forest, alone for that, but to be as young as she and not even be scared was something very new to him. She had big eyes that were a bright, startling blue that were full of imaginative and opinionated thoughts and silky light blonde hair that hung to her waist in waves. Her skin was tanned some, as if she spent at least half of her time outside.

Athena could see the surprise on the young man's face plain as day and couldn't help but smile. She took great pleasure in surprising people speechless or dumfounded. She found it amusing but herself wondered why he was there. He didn't look to be that much older than she was, ten years older at the maximum with soft gold eyes and, from what she could tell, short dark brunette hair and standing almost a full foot taller than she did and had light tan skin.

"My reasons are my own." Kozmotis replied.

"As are mine." Athena responded, putting her hands on her hips.

"It is dangerous out in the forest. Especially for a girl as young as you." He answered.

"I am not like other girls." She countered.

"Obviously." He responded crossing his arms.

"I'm sorry I am being rude, my name is Athena Russel, you are?" Athena asked.

"Kozmotis Pitchiner." He replied.

"That is a unique name, in a good way. " She commented.

"Well very few people are named after one of the gods." He remarked.

"My mom use to tell me that Athena had come to her when she was pregnant with me and blessed the unborn child. After I was born mom named me after her. What do people usually call you?" Athena replied.

"Either Kozmotis or Pitchiner." He replied.

"Mind if I call you Pitch?" She asked with an innocent smile.

"Pitch? Um, no I would rather you didn't." He answered.

"Okay then how about Kozy?" She asked.

"Pitch works." Kozmotis replied. Athena smiled and added, "Don't get me wrong your name is nice, but sort of a mouthful."

"I suppose I understand, however no one has ever said that to me before." He responded, feeling odd talking so casually to a young lady, and a very odd one at that but he couldn't help but find her behavior and casual attitude amusing and easy to be around.

"Well whatever you're doing I suppose I will leave you to it then. I hope to meet you again Pitch." She said with a smile and waved. Kozmotis gave a nod in agreement and returned the wave, watching her leave before going back into the deep cave and to the prison while Athena headed to the separate cave she used for her projects and continued working.

Athena's eyes flashed open, her mind returning to the present but she laid there for a long time as the memories flooded her frontal lobe. She couldn't help but allow herself to smile at the sour, yet slightly amused, look on his face when she had suggested in referring to him as Kozy. There had been several times in which she had called him that whenever he would do something that he knew would irritate her so she pulled that card on him. Every time he made that face when she called him that, he made that specific sour face no other time than when he heard the nickname 'Kozy' and it always made her laugh.

She wondered if it would have the same effect now and decided that the next time she saw him she would try it just for some fun.

For now she had some things to do to get places ready for Halloween and flew around from one place to another that needed a little help. While flying she changed her appearance. Having long raven hair, bright red eyes and a Victorian black and red ball gown. Athena loved dressing up and changing her appearance and she was starting to get tired of her natural appearance.

Her pumpkin communicator started to beep at her, the tooth shaped button on the side blinking. She pressed the button to accept the call and Tooth's face appeared. She was startled by the change in Athena's appearance but it was common knowledge that the spirit of Halloween was rarely seen with the same appearance more than once.

"Athena?" She asked.

"Yes. Is there something you need help with?" Athena replied.

"There are many children in the London area having nightmares, Sandy is trying to help fix that but there are too many." She replied.

"So Pitch is around." Athena confirmed.

"I think so." She answered looking worried.

"I'll be there in a second." Athena responded and opened a magic portal based on the coordinates Tooth had given her and could practically feel the fear radiating from the city and spreading. She was sure that part of the reason was because the tours of the older parts of London had started and Pitch used the fear from there and allowed it to spread like wildfire. She flew over the city searching for the source.

She finally found it, where they had the tour for the Jack the Ripper killings.

_Of course that's where it'd be._ She thought sourly and landed off to the side and looked around. Tooth had already contacted Jack, Bunnymund and North.

_We couldn't even have one night of peace? This is going to be a very busy October._ Athena thought and spotted a nightmare or fearling, _Whatever they're called._ She thought and went after it. A scream followed from the home of a family, two of three of the children woke up with nightmares.

She flew up to the house and could see Pitch standing on the roof with an amused smile on his face at the children's terror of their bad dreams. Anger burned in Athena immediately firing a spell that matched. White flames erupted from her wand and blew Pitch off his feet, catching him off guard and sending him flying. She flew after him and used another spell to catch him and throw him into a wall.

"Returned to have some more fun?" He asked while getting up.

"Sure, let's have some fun. A game that we use to play, it's now called Red Rover though. Red Rover, red rover send Pitchiner right over!" She said fiercely and sent Pitch flying again being caught in a slide of ice and sent right at Sandy who had his golden sand whips ready and the two engaged in battle.

Sandy was sent flying and caught himself on his dream sand, immediately fighting multiple nightmares. They darkened the entire sky, the moon and stars were all shrouded by the darkness and nightmare sand.

"Pitch stop this madness! Look around you! This is not what you stood for! The world needs to be balanced! Another Dark Age will not make you feel better!" Athena shouted at him.

"I am not the same man I was. Stop comparing me to who I use to be, this is who I am now and I prefer it over the fool that I was." He responded coldly.

"I suppose you're right Kozy." She replied, earning the same sour look that she use to get when she called him that and couldn't help but smile and said, "But there are still parts of you that are the same."

"Don't call me that." He snapped.

"Why? You know how it went, you'd irritate me and I'd call you Kozy to retaliate. You've been irritating me a lot the past few times of our encounters so it's only fair." She replied with a smile and created a gun that shot out a substance that made a bubble and trapped Pitch inside.

He created a scythe and sliced it, lunging at Athena with it. She ducked and rolled out of the way.

"You can fight better than that Kozy. What happened to the beloved General who guarded the prison? Has your fighting gotten rusty?" She taunted, her anger diminishing with the teasing and created a large shield to defend against the scythe.

"Stop calling me that!" He said angrily.

"Make me." She challenged and grabbed the handle of the scythe as he was pulling back for another swing and used it to propel herself over his head and behind him. She shot a small arc of electricity from her wand but using such powerful magic at once like the white fire and was draining her quickly.

Pitch blocked the lightning with the scythe and the black sand absorbed it and fired back, but it was black lightning this time. It hit Athena right in the chest and down the street hitting the side of a car, leaving a dent.

She propped herself up with one elbow, trying to get up but her body wasn't responding well. Her muscles strongly protested to any movement while she tried to ignore them to get up. A gray hand wrapped around her neck and effortlessly lifted her off the ground.

"I wonder how much darkness and fear it takes to corrupt your magic. I have quite the imagination myself and your magic would be very useful to me." Pitch said softly, but not a calming soft, no it was the kind of soft tone that anyone would find extremely creepy and easily made the heart and mind race and paralyze the body with fear.

Suddenly he dropped her to the ground, flashes of explosive light pelting him; Athena noticed that the pellets were tooth shaped.

"Are you okay Athena?" Tooth asked.

"Yeah, just a little tired." Athena replied and allowed Tooth to help her stand. She picked up her wand a gave it a wave, calling for her broom, which she had dropped further down the road. It got up and waddled over to her as if it had just walked out of Fantasia.

"You're doing this on purpose just to tick me off aren't you?" Athena questioned it. The broom gave a sort of nod before jumping and flying over to her.

"Thank you." She responded and hopped on.

"Why don't we take this to the sky?" Tooth asked with a smile. Athena smiled back and the two threw pellets at Pitch to get his attention and flew off. Immediately he followed as they flew up into the darkness, striking down horses until they found the rest of the Guardians.

"How goes it?" Athena called.

"How do yah think it's going sheila?" Bunnymund demanded while throwing egg bombs in all directions.

"Okay smart guy I was just asking how you're doing." She replied while sending an arc of white flames out and burning up a line of the nightmares.

"Can you not make something to absorb these things?" Jack demanded.

"I tried the first time I noticed how strong he was getting. It didn't work for very long. I told you we know each other too well, he's learning ways of countering things I do." She called back and thought of a different idea.

"Sandy can you help me out with this?" She called, creating a large device that was like a tube with two handles, a switch and two nets on either end of the tube.

"What is that?" North questioned.

She ignored him and had Sandy put a hand on one of the handles and to concentrate on changing the nightmare sand to dream sand and she threw the switch. The closest nightmares were immediately sucked through the tube and came out as bright golden dream sand.

"Get the nightmares closer!" Athena called to the others who obliged and caught the attention of the nightmares and lured them in the desired direction until they were sucked in. The machine was quickly draining both Athena and Sandy but it was certainly doing the trick.

Pitch stopped when he realized what they were doing and notched an arrow, aiming for Athena but something stopped him from firing at her, instead, at the last second he changed his aim for the machine and let the arrow go. It caused the machine to explode, sending Athena and Sandy in opposite directions and falling through the sky straight for the ground thousands of feet below.

**Mah little bubble:** Yay done! This chapter does start something new from my normal set-up (I guess that's the right way to put it) of writing, but you'll find out as we go, note that not all chapters will be in this set-up but I think the next one will and then have it like that ever other/every few chapters, but I'm still deciding. Okay I will stop babbling nonsensical madness. Thanks for reading and reviewing it really does mean a lot and I'd love to hear from you all on opinions or ideas you might have to share! Au revior!


	4. Chapter 4: Steeling Magic

Chapter 4 Steeling Magic

_Almost half a year had gone by before Athena and Kozmotis met again, by that time Athena had turned fourteen but hasn't changed much. She started to wear her hair in a long braid to keep it out of the way when working and she had grown a little more, starting to look more like a young woman than a girl._

_Kozmotis didn't really change over the past several months, after being made the guard for the prison he started to age slower, but that didn't really bother him._

_Athena wandered around through the forest. Every once in a while she would come across the cavern again but she suspected that there was something different about it. Each time she would go to where she had last found it there was nothing but the mountain wall. She thought that it could be moving but for all she knew she could just be psyching herself out simply because she can't find it when she tries. Today she was looking for large rocks. Not huge boulders but large enough for her to be able to push to her work area. Which was now her home as well. The authorities had tried to send her to an orphanage, to work in workshops, anything they could do to clear her out of her parents house so she left before someone would come to force her._

_She found one that was a little on the large side but she was sure she could push it. Athena was stronger than she looked, she wasn't really much of a fighter but usually she worked alone, and liked it that way, so she did the heavy lifting herself. The hardest part was getting the boulder first moving so for the next hour she fought to get a stick under it and had to sit on the stick to get the rock up and rolling. She then started to push the rock and fought it to get it to go into the direction she wanted._

_"Come on you infuriating boulder, work with me!" She huffed and slipped, cutting her hand on a small bit jutting out and allowed a stream of curse words and phrases that would never come out of a lady's mouth, and saying them rather loudly at that. Not that she cared._

_Kozmotis had been returning from the city back to the prison when he heard a loud stream of cursing. Clearly the voice was female and he recognized it, immediately knowing who it was. The girl Athena, she was a very hard person to forget and only she would have the guts to use curse words so loudly and openly. He followed the sound and sure enough he was right, the odd girl was wrapping a bloody hand up in a strip of white cloth and went back to trying to roll a boulder, making it move little by little._

_She hadn't noticed him, he was behind her and she was too focused on what she was doing to hear a rock slide so he walked up behind her and asked right next to her ear, "Might I ask what you are doing?"_

_She jumped, startled having been forced out of her concentration and whirled around to face him._

_"Ah, hello Pitch. I-I'm moving this boulder." She answered. Even though during their last meeting she hadn't gotten a very good look at him she certainly recognized his voice and eyes, she had never met anyone with such beautiful golden eyes before._

_"I can see that, for what reason are you moving a boulder?" He questioned with a small, amused smile._

_"A project." She replied. He raised an eyebrow quizzically and asked, "What kind of project would you be in the need of a boulder?"_

"Tooth get Athena, we'll get Sandy!" Jack called and flew off catching Sandy and put him into the sleigh. Tooth dove after Athena but feared that she wouldn't make it. She caught Athena's broom and wand on the way.

Pitch waited for Athena to pull one of her last minute stunts but with each foot that she fell a part of him started to fear that she wouldn't make it. He acted without thinking and flew, getting to Athena before Tooth and caught her. Athena groaned, clutching the side of her head which was bleeding.

"Ow, that really hurt." She grumbled to herself and opened her eyes looking right into the bright golden eyes she use to know so well. She looked around confused before the situation hit her like a ton of bricks.

"W-why did you do that? Why save me?" She questioned, noticing that he was standing on, sort of, a cloud of the black sand and carrying her. Tooth wasn't very far away and flying towards them.

Pitch had no answer for that because he was wondering that himself, luckily for him Tooth broke in before he needed to answer.

"Let her go Pitch!" Tooth commanded.

"Very poor choice of words." Pitch replied and dropped Athena, allowing her to fall through a hole in the black sand. Tooth dove and caught her, giving her the wand and broom. Athena hopped on and joined the rest of the Guardians but not before looking back at Pitch.

_Well it's a good thing he had caused the problem, otherwise I would owe him a debt for the save...he'll probably say that I owe him anyways._ She thought as she landed on one of the wings of the sleigh and gripped the side as she looked around. About half of the nightmares had been returned to gold dream sand that was already being sent off to children for good dreams.

"Well we managed to set 'im back a bit." Bunnymund commented.

"If you and Sandy do that trick with that machine again then we could really slow him down right?" Jack asked.

"No, that left them open for attack just like it did tonight and it drained them." North responded.

"It can be a last resort use." Athena replied and looked at Sandy who was still unconscious. Athena herself was feeling the massive effects of using so much magic and her powers at once and started to slip. Immediately North picked her up and put her in the sleigh before she fell asleep.

Sandy woke up about an hour later with Athena waking up not too long after. Immediately Sandy headed off to finish up the night while Athena just stared around the room completely confused as to where she was. She looked out the window to only see gray and snow along with yetis and elves in a large courtyard.

_The North Pole?_ She wondered, only guessing having never been to North's workshop herself. She got out of the bed and headed to the door, poking her head out looking over an enormous room where yetis walked around and made toys or tested them out. She wandered around, eyes huge trying to see everything and ended up walking right into Jack.

"Sorry." They both said in unison. She couldn't help but go right back to looking around.

"You've never been here have you?" Jack guessed.

"No. I've considered busting in but I would have an unfair advantage with my magic and all." She replied.

"How old are you?" Jack asked.

"Why do you ask?" She questioned.

"Just wondering, sometimes you seem really mature and then times like this where you're overly amazed at a toy factory." He responded with a shrug.

"Well I was twenty-one when I died and that was during the time of Ancient Greece about 3,000 years ago." She replied.

"You don't look twenty-one. Or 3,000." He commented.

"Well you don't look 300 yourself." She answered.

"Good point. So how did you become a Guardian? I mean you said you were the one who created Man in the Moon to create spirits and guardians, how did you become one?" He asked curiously.

Athena snapped her fingers followed by a small _pop_ and Jack was about a foot tall and a pure white cat with icy blue eyes.

"Whoa!" He said surprised.

"Curiosity killed the cat you know. I'll tell you how I became one if you tell me how you did." She replied and snapped her fingers again making him change back.

"Okay I'll stop asking questions for now, but I am curious as to how you and Pitch know each other. All of us are." He responded.

"If it comes up the next time we're all together then maybe I'll be open to sharing." Athena responded and walked off to find North.

"Ah good your up." The booming Russian accented voice of North said behind her. She turned and asked, "Have I missed anything?"

"Ah, well there have been some disturbances in varying locations but Bunny is already working on that. You need rest. We weren't sure where you lived so we came here. One of the safest places ever." North responded.

"I don't live anywhere. I go where I want and do my own thing." She replied simply.

"Ah, alright then." He answered.

"I should go help." Athena said while heading to the door.

"You need rest." North insisted.

"I need to get out there and keep my holiday under control. It's officially October now and I still have a lot to do and keep track of." She argued and was out the door and flying off on her broom before North could argue further.

"Even for someone so old you'd think she would have more patients and be less reckless than this." North remarked to Jack.

"She's kind of stuck in the form of a young adult." Jack pointed out.

"Yes, I suppose 300 years didn't change your attitude very much now did it?" He responded.

"How goes it Moony?" Athena asked aloud.

_You take great pleasure in giving people nicknames don't you? _Man in the Moon responded.

"Man in the Moon is a mouthful just like Kozmotis Pitchiner is. I'm not going to very well use your full name." She responded as she flew low over the towns and cities sending spells down to suppress the fearlings as she went.

"Hey Sandy, you feeling any better?" Athena asked when she saw the Sandman sitting on a golden cloud made of dream sand.

He nodded but still looked tired all the same.

"Morning is on it's way, you should get some more sleep." She advised. He gave a thumbs up in response. She smiled and flew on.

For the next week and a half it was very quiet. Not different from a normal October and this put Athena on edge. The other guardians, besides North, didn't seem very bothered by it, they saw it as a possibility of their having weakened Pitch but North understood why Athena was on edge because his dominate time of the year was very similar to hers when it came to the mood of everyone as the dominate holiday of the month approached. After the two hectic days that they had before October even came they were expecting it to only get worse.

"He must be in hiding to become stronger." North replied.

"It's hard to do that without being spotted. It's taken him seven years to get to this strength since he was last defeated. To regain that power he can't do it in hiding very easily." Athena mused while pacing.

"I think he's just weaker." Bunnymund commented.

"No, he's not. Yes we did manage to significantly reduce his power but he's not weaker. He's just using another tactic." She responded and flicked her wand as an image of a globe appeared with various orange lights mixed in with the usual gold ones that represent the children of the world. Each time she touched an orange light the area would appear. The orange lights represented the magical items and things she had sent out to keep an eye open until the image shrunk and the globe acted of its own accord.

"What in the hell?" Athena asked surprised by it's actions as the globe stopped. One of the orange lights immediately turned black and several more close to it did the same. She touched the black dots and felt a sudden charge go though her, striking fear into her heart. She jumped back and looked at the globe, the black dots had completely disappeared.

"What was that?" Tooth asked.

"I'm not sure." Athena admitted and decided to go and see for herself. She opened a portal and stepped through it, tracking down the first object and inspected it, immediately knowing that something was wrong because the magical witch decoration she had created was now just an ordinary piece of decoration. The magic had been sucked out of it and the lingering feeling of darkness told her exactly who it was. She went back to the mansion in which she was currently residing where the Guardians waited and conjured up the globe again. At least ten at a time each magical object she had created was corrupted and drained of it's magic.

"This is not good." Athena commented.

"What's happening? Aren't those orange lights your magical items that are helping us keep track of things?" Jack asked.

"Yes. But Pitch is corrupting them and taking their magic. If he can use that magic with the darkness then he could create some really bad things, like when he created nightmares with some fear and the dream sand." She explained.

"Corrupting your magic into dark magic the way he corrupted Sandy's dream sand into nightmare sand. No that doesn't sound good at all." Bunny agreed.

"But there is different kinds of magic right?" North asked.

"Yes and he's corrupting surveillance, defensive, offensive and animation magic by taking and corrupting the magic in those objects." Athena responded.

"What does that mean? Speak plain English will yah?" Bunny questioned.

"It means he can use it to bring objects to life, use varying attack and defensive features as well as giving sight and hearing to anything he wants having extended eyes and ears for him if he sends them anywhere he wants, exactly what I was using the magic for but his own evil purpose. Of course the magic is limited and will run out on him within a few days." She explained.

"How long will the magic last if he got a hole of all of your magical servants?" Jack asked looking at the globe. Everyone looked at it as well, there being no more orange dots.

"A week most likely depending on how much he uses at once. Since he doesn't use this kind of power it's likely that he doesn't know how long he has with it. Regardless a Pitch with magic is a very dangerous one no matter the amount of magic or time. We have to find him fast." She responded and started to put locating spells on the globe. Colorful lights flew around the globe at once and in all directions until they all landed in one spot.

"What? Are you sure?" She asked. The lights just kept blinking.

"Where is it?" Jack asked.

"Where I grew up as a human. Athens, Greece...and I know exactly where too." She replied looking uneasy but opened a portal regardless.

**Me:** Hello all! Yes another chapter and the first with the new thing I'm trying where you as the reader gets to see the human life of Athena and Pitch as their relationship grew with the present day happenings as the rest of the characters start to learn more alongside it. Thanks for reading! Let me know what you think, but please no bullying, constructive criticism is welcome or nicely put opinions and any ideas you might have are welcome too!


	5. Chapter 5: Secrets Revealed

**Yes there are some words in here used differently than how they are used today like the word 'queer.' Keep in mind this is a different time period, just thought I should put that out there**

Chapter 5 Secrets Revealed

_"Um, it's hard to explain but I need it as a weight." She responded a little sheepishly. She had to admit he was handsome but something like that had never affected her the way it did the other females she knew who might swoon or giggle about it._

_"You are a very odd girl aren't you?" He replied, it was more or less a question of confirmation._

_"So I've been told. Well not to be rude but I am trying to get this thing home before the sun sets so if you will please excuse me I should be getting back to this." She replied, trying to be polite._

_"Would you like my help?" He offered._

_"Oh, no I couldn't allow you to do that, I'm sure you have other things you need to or would rather be doing that helping a funny girl like me push a boulder." She replied._

_"I still have a few hours before I need to work again." He insisted._

_"Oh, no I couldn't allow you to help me. I am perfectly fine." She argued. He rolled his eyes and helped anyways._

_"Please I don't need or want help, I don't want you to be bothered with this." Athena said determinedly._

_"No matter what you say I'm going to help. I do not want you to be doing this by yourself. Where are we taking this to?" He responded._

_"That cave." She said pointing at a cave a few hundred feet away. She decided to give up, he was clearly almost as stubborn as she was so they would get absolutely nowhere if they had continued arguing so she decided to hold her arguments and went back to shoving the boulder. Within the hour they made it halfway, most likely that would have taken Athena at least two on her own._

_They stopped and took a break._

_"What do you need such a large rock as a weight for? What are you doing with it?" Kozmotis questioned as they sat and rested._

_"I need it to keep something off the ground, anchor it down." She explained._

_"Must be a big object." He commented as they started again. Kozmotis never expected to be spending a day rolling a boulder to a cave with a girl as queer as Athena but he couldn't help but admire her determination and spirit, surly someone as different as she was ostracized and treated differently, most likely in a negative way, yet she stayed true to herself and refused to change._

_"By the time it's finished it will outweigh the rock, if my calculations are correct." She responded. Once at the mouth of the cave she added, "Thank you for the help. If there is anything I can do for you in return let me know please."_

_Kozmotis wasn't paying attention, he was looking around the cave with blatant surprise. There were so many different things from crafts to small inventions and some things that was about ten feet tall. When she started all of these projects and how long it took he had no idea._

_"I've always had a lot of time on my hands. And no I did not make all of it by myself." She said, answering the questions that were clear on his face._

_"Your family does not mind? Would a girl your age not already be learning how to take care of the house and home?" He questioned._

_She shrugged and said, "My parents died over a year ago, I have no one to make me prepare to get married."_

_"I'm sorry to hear about your parents deaths." He replied._

_"It's part of life. Sometimes things happen that are out of our control. I've done my grieving, I will get nowhere if I dwell on things out of my control." She replied bluntly. She was very frank and mature for her age, most definitely ahead of her time, very far ahead. _

Athena stepped through the portal with the other Guardians following behind and out into the forest she use to know so well. She was surprised that it was still there, almost completely untouched by human tampering.

"Wow, I can't believe it's been untouched." She breathed out in disbelief while looking around. Besides the elements making some changes it was almost the same as she remembered.

"Where are we?" Tooth asked.

"A forest in Athens. I use to spend a lot of time here." Athena responded, knowing exactly where she was going and needed to be.

"So where are we going?" Jack asked.

"My home." She said simply as they walked through the forest until they came to the side of a mountain and a cave cut into the side. Once at the mouth of the cave they all knew they were at the right place. Swirls of darkness curled around inside along with fearlings roaming the vast cave where many different crafts, wood and stone objects and tapestries sat or hung. Athena had long ago put a spell on the cave so that it wasn't seen or anything in or around it damaged but she didn't think it would hold up this long.

"Welcome home Athena. This is where you had made your home at about age twelve correct?" Pitch's voice said from the depths of the cave.

"Thirteen actually. Your memory is still a little rusty Kozy. What are you doing here?" She responded.

"Regaining some memories here and there. This place popped into my mind so I came to find out why. Not too far away is where we first me no?" He responded.

"You would be correct." She responded.

"It is also not too far from where you died if I'm not mistaken." He added, knowing he would be hitting a sore spot for her. She chewed on her lower lip in thought before replying, "It is. Been starting to remember more eh?" She asked, keeping from showing any emotion.

"Little by little, familiarity helps. Like the memory of you abandoning me." He countered, a burst of anger lashing out. Athena flinched as if having actually been hit but then her eyes started glowing an angry red.

"You think I abandoned you? You actually thought that I would do that? Well no wonder the darkness was able to corrupt you so easily, you have no faith or trust in others even when they put too much in you and your memory is still very spotty." Athena replied coldly and strode right up to him and gave him a hard stare. She may have been shorter but she was equally intimidating.

"I am terribly sorry that I trusted your competence and believed that you trusted me enough to listen to me and believe in me." She said stiffly.

"I did, but you weren't there." He argued.

"Obviously you still have things that you need to remember before I continue this argument with you because we've already had it, and you need to lose the darkness and evil that is corrupting you before I ever try to be civilized around you again." She countered.

"That will never happen. I like this power too much to give it up." He responded. She gave a blank expression before asking, "Why are you even bothering in trying to remember if you love the darkness and evil so much? Remembering will only be a hassle to you. You already know enough to guess most everything I throw at you, the rest is useless to you."

"That is where you're wrong, but it seems that this place holds no more memories for me to find so destroying it will be my next step." He replied. Athena took a step back with a horrified expression, "You will not."

"I will and you and your Guardians can watch." Pitch replied and snapped his fingers. Immediately larger and much stronger looking nightmares swooped in. These had eyes, but they looked like the pictures you would see of a supermassive black hole instead of the usual fierce gold. They were quickly able to keep the Guardians busy with fighting while a few others managed to corner Athena.

"Using the magic with your nightmares, not a bad idea although the time limit is still the same." Athena commented. Ste had been cornered by one along with a few regular nightmares, her wand on the ground and out of reach. She felt stupid for having been overpowered this quickly.

"Time limit?" Pitch questioned.

"Yeah, magic in items isn't unlimited, each item lasts for about two weeks depending on the size of the object, type of magic and how often it's used, but fusing it and using it on a larger scale like this will probably only last you a week at best." She replied.

"Then how about this?" He questioned, picking up her wand.

"Ha!" She laughed, he shot her a questioning glare.

"Still missing some memories." Was all she replied with.

"Well if I can't use it then I'll have to make sure that you can't either." He replied and snapped it in half before tossing it into the midst of the inventions and crafts as darkness and nightmares swooped in on it all and started destroying it.

"Stop it! This stuff isn't helpful to any of us so just leave it alone!" Athena shouted.

"Seeing it destroyed causes you emotional pain, that's all the reason I need." He responded and laughed at the destruction until he turned to see a tapestry that had three people on it. A young woman with shoulder length wavy blonde hair, large bright blue eyes, a young man with short, smoothed back dark brown hair and soft golden eyes and a little girl about three or four years old with smooth, straight dark brown hair and large bright blue eyes and smiling happily.

A faint feeling of recognition hit him when looking at it, however it didn't bring any real memories back so he felt nothing as the nightmares swooped in to destroy it too.

"No! Leave that alone!" Athena shouted at him.

"If you're that insistent on it being left alone then it must be very important to you. Destroy it." Pitch said.

"No! Don't let them destroy it Kozmotis!" Athena argued, tears welling up in her eyes. The tapestry was the only thing she had to remember the family she once had, their family together with their only child Katherine, whom Pitch still didn't remember. However Athena calling him by his full first name did strike a nerve inside of Pitch. He snapped his fingers and the nightmares back off but destroyed everything else before disappearing, completely silent, confusing everyone as all of the nightmares disappeared with him. The workshop was in ruins, the only thing left was the tapestry.

"What's that?" Bunny asked as they walked over to it to see.

"And why would Pitch leave it alone?" North added, none of them having seen or heard the exchange, having been fighting.

"That's you isn't it?" Tooth asked, pointing at the young woman with blonde hair.

"It was yes." She replied.

"That guy looks like...no way, that's not who I think it is, is it?" Jack asked in surprise. All of the Guardians were giving Athena surprised and questioning looks, wanting answers and it was clear that they would not accept a 'no.'

"That is Pitch is it not?" North asked.

"Yes, well, who he was." She replied dully.

"And you two had a daughter? She's so pretty. And with such a pretty smile." Tooth said while looking at the tapestry.

"What happened to her? What's her name?" Jack asked.

"Katherine. She grew up and she died." Athena stated blankly, of course she missed her daughter at times but it had been a long time ago and Katherine seemed to have lived a full life, Athena's only believe and having married a good man and had children they loved. Athena only wished Katherine's father could have seen their daughter grow up. Athena had been keeping track of their descendants since.

"Pitch doesn't remember her does he? Or that you two were married?" Bunny asked.

"No, as far as I can tell, at the present time he only remembers me as a person and a few memories outside of that. At first he only remembered the nickname I had given him 'Pitch' and added 'Black' to it. Other than that I don't think he remembers much." She explained.

"My mind is still having trouble wrapping around that. You and Pitch got married and had a child together?" Jack asked. Sandy silently laughed.

"Yeah, yeah it's a real shocker let's just go." Athena replied, she was done with the conversation. She pulled the tapestry down and carefully rolled it up. She searched for her wand and picked it up, concentrating on repairing it until it worked. She then used a spell to send the tapestry to another safe place before taking one more look at the ruined place.

Her blood boiled at the destruction that Pitch had caused to it, almost all of the work from her human life ruined, not only that but it was history, of course no humans knew about it but that didn't change the fact that they were 3,000 year old fully functional crafts and artifacts destroyed in less than a minute. She was only glad that he left the tapestry alone but he was more than ready to destroy it.

_Is he really that corrupt and cold-hearted? Would he have done the same thing if he had all of his memories despite being corrupted by the darkness?_ She wondered as she stepped through the portal after the rest of the Guardians.

They ended up in a clearing of a forest, with a pond nearby and a cliff side.

"Who decided on this place?" Athena asked.

"Jack." Tooth replied.

"Okay so where are we?" She questioned.

"Burgess. A friend of mine lives here, and it was my hometown when I was human." Jack replied, walking through the woods into a town. The rest of the Guardians headed off to do their own thing while Athena got onto her broom and flew over the town to look around. She remembered having visited the area maybe a hundred years ago while tracking one of her descendants who had moved there during that time.

"Is there something special about this town besides those two things?" Athena asked as Tooth flew by.

"His friend Jamie was the first to believe in Jack." She explained.

"Ah okay." Athena replied in understanding.

"You should meet him." Tooth said.

"Yeah because kids believe that there's a spirit behind the goings on of Halloween." Athena replied sarcastically.

"Jamie is different." Tooth insisted.

**Little corner of mine:** Hello all! As said above with the reminder keep in mind of the time period so of course behavior and such is very different during Athena's originated time period. This chapter only cuts the surface of their history, well it's more of a generalized version but there will be more details as the story goes, hence the flashbacks at the beginning of the chapters.

Eventually we will be getting to the points of Katherine's birth and Man in the Moon's creation but it is of course in chronological order so it'll be a little while. There may be points (like dreams or flash memories of Pitch's) that show varying things out of the order. There is a reason for the mention of a descendant moving to Burgess, anyone wanna take a guess?

Sooo yeah, thank you for reading! If anyone has random ideas I would love to hear them and, if they can fit, I'll most likely use them :)


	6. Chapter 6: Impulsive

Chapter 6 Impulsive

_About nine months had passed since the two saw each other again, by this time some people of the city were starting to take Athena and her inventions seriously when she demonstrated household objects, tools and weapons she made and started to use her weapons to defend themselves if the time ever came that the Romans would attack. _

_Everyone knew that it was inevitable if they continued the way they have been through the land. Athena was sure it would happen in the near future, she wrote a lot about it in her journal. Athena's journal was starting to fill up fast, she had been writing one ever since her parents had died, just to write goings on of the days while she kept all plans and prints in a separate one. Both she always had with her. On a cold winter morning Athena decided to take a day off from working, today being her fifteenth birthday, and sat on a fallen tree beside the stream to catch up with writing before collecting water to take back home._

_The snow fell lightly, the morning was quiet and peaceful as she described the city's reactions to her crafts and inventions. As always she liked having the surprising effect on others, it was never something she was bored of to see other's surprised expressions. She, like all other women, are well aware of the gender roles of women so even other women were always surprised by her. She also knew that many people would want nothing more than for her to be normal, to be chosen for a wife and keep her mouth and ideas quiet._

_That is just not who Athena is. She tried when she was little but she had no self control and was much too impulsive, it didn't matter what it was._

_She did not stop writing even when she heard light footsteps in the snow behind her. Or at least she did not stop until the kind, yet smooth voice of Kozmotis said her name, "Athena?"_

_She turned around and gave a crooked smile and replied, "Hello."_

_"I've never seen you over here before." He commented. Kozmotis never really liked when people used crooked smiles, usually it entailed an equally crooked thought or idea but he couldn't help but think otherwise when Athena gave her own, he liked her crooked smile. The last time they had met they had more time to become more aquatinted and he would not put it past Athena to come up with something to match the smile but he was sure she wouldn't pull some kind of prank or anything at the present time, now if they ever got closer then she would when she knew him well enough so she knew where the line was and know what would cross the line with him._

_"I've been a little busy, only been coming over here for water lately." She responded._

_"I've heard rumors flying around about some new inventor who's helping the military. You wouldn't know or having anything to do with that would you?" He responded with a small, knowing smile that Athena found really cute. After their last meeting she picked up that he didn't smile very much, most likely because he didn't have reason to very often. Just like most people Athena didn't smile very often either unless she was genuinely happy, amused or glad to see someone then she will smile at them._

_"Did the rumors entail a rude, obnoxious young woman? If so then yes I would likely have something to do with it." She responded._

_"Well now no one said obnoxious, they did use rude and odd though." He replied._

_Athena shrugged and said, "No surprise."_

_"And many believe that the gods speak to you." He added. _

_"Aha, ha, ha, ha! You have to be making that up. Who would say that?" Athena laughed. Kozmotis was taken off guard by her laughing at the idea and almost expected Zeus to strike her down for doing so, however nothing happened._

_"It just goes with the other rumors. Why do you find that so funny?" Kozmotis asked, confused._

_"Because the idea is laughable. Why would the gods talk to me? That's absurd. I'm not anything special, I'm just a crazy, queer young woman who does what she wants and is lucky that it actually works." She responded after calming down from laughing._

_"I wouldn't say crazy." He replied._

_"You do not need to because I already did." She responded._

_"I do admit though you are...different, but I believe it is a good sort of different. I think that if you continue to be yourself then you can use your imagination and skills to help many people." Kozmotis answered with a small, reassuring smile._

_Athena couldn't help but smile in return._

"Whatever you say." Athena responded with a shrug and followed Tooth to Jamie's house where Jack hovered outside his window until the young teenager opened it to let him in ad waved at Tooth as they approached. Tooth and Athena both flew in.

"What are you going to be for Halloween?" Jack asked him.

"I don't think I'm going to be dressing up this year." Jamie said with a shrug.

"Passing up a reason to dress up and get free candy? What kind of kid are you? High school and college students would never pass this up." Athena commented.

Jack chuckled in response to her comment making Jamie give him a questioning expression.

"A friend made a comment about your decision against dressing up for Halloween." He explained.

"Who? Tooth didn't say anything." Jamie responded, still confused.

"She's the spirit of Halloween. Keeps children safe during this time of year and helps inspire the costumes and whatever else goes on with this holiday." He replied.

"Really? What's her name? Why can't I see her?" Jamie asked.

"No sayings or rumors ever flew around about Halloween but her name is Athena. She questions your decision on dressing up." Tooth answered.

"Costumes are getting more expensive and I can't think of any good ideas that I can make myself so why bother?" He replied.

Athena looked around the boys room, even though he couldn't see her she could still help out but while looking around she noticed his school schedule, more importantly his family name. Her mind backtracked to the descendants but she would have to check the tree before she was sure.

She waved her wand and varying costumes of different people on his wall and floated before the young teenager.

"Whoa!" He said in surprise and then looked right at Athena. She had changed her appearance again to having rainbow hair and matching rainbow eyes wearing a plain white shirt, black skinny jeans and splatter paint converses. She leaned against her broom, it's appearance also changed to black and white with rainbow ribbons hanging off the end with her wand in hand as the costumes floated around.

"Cool another spirit! And you just made costumes appear in my room!" Jamie exclaimed. She blinked in surprise. No one's believed in her since her great grandchildren died over 2,000 years ago and it was always hard to get most kids to believe in something like this unless they grew up with it.

"Um, yeah. What was it that you wanted to be for Halloween?" Athena asked him.

He showed her the movie character after recovering from the shock. She had to admit it, Tooth was right and was shocked herself. Her appearance changed to Yin, since the costume already existed the only thing that was need was creating what was already there. She plucked the picture and pulled the costume out of the magazine while all the others disappeared and her appearance changed back to what it was before.

"Whoa, your appearance changed." Jamie remarked.

"Yes it does that. I am the guardian of Imagination and Creation, typical loner, do what I want sort of person." She replied.

"You're a Guardian too? When did you join?" He asked excitedly.

"Um...well I've kind of been around longer than the others, but I do my own thing and let the other five handle it. It's only been until recently that I've needed to get help from them and help them myself." She replied.

"So...you just let them handle it when Pitch Black was destroying belief?" Jamie questioned.

"I would have intervened if I didn't have confidence. Man in the Moon keeps me informed, when he told me who he was choosing to be the new Guardian I wasn't worried about it." She explained.

There was a loud angry whinny outside as a black figure flew by.

"Please don't tell me that was a nightmare that flew by in the middle of the day." Jack said.

Immediately Athena was out the window and flying after it.

"What? Nightmares? Is Pitch back?" Jamie asked.

"Yes. He's been using Halloween the past several years and we have to stop him before Halloween so be careful this month okay? See you later." Jack said as he and Tooth flew out the window as well.

Athena was far ahead, gaining on the nightmare as it flew, seemingly unaware of the Halloween spirits' presence.

"Those things notice everything, why hasn't it turned around and attacked?" Jack questioned.

"Could it be some kind of trap?" Tooth asked.

"I don't think Pitch would be able to manage that during the day. Athena and Sandy did cut his power a lot with that machine she made." Jack answered, having no idea how wrong he was until they came to the forest at the outskirts of town.

Tooth noticed first, looking down into the trees to see black and yellow dots of eyes.

"Athena! Jack!" She yelled to get their attention, but it was too late, the swarm of nightmares and darkness appeared from below and surrounded the three Guardians, trapping them in a large ball and attacking until they wore themselves out.

The three woke up in their own cages of a large cavernous room. Jack and Athena had both been in this place before, although when Athena found it, the entrance was where she and Pitch had first met.

"Guess the entrance to this places moves around a bit." She commented as she looked around.

"You're more impulsive than Jack you know." Tooth commented.

"Duh, I know that, why do you think I let Man in the Moon pick the Guardians? I sure as hell wouldn't do a good job at it. Besides you're pretty impulsive yourself, because you followed." She answered with a shrug.

"Who knew it would be this easy to lure you into a trap? Originally it was set for Athena because of her impulsiveness but to get three of you in one go? I must say I am surprised, or at least by Tooth Fairy. Jack is pretty impulsive himself." Pitch said from below.

"Why do you have so many cages?" Tooth asked.

"He used them to hold the fairies." Jack answered.

"That's not what they were originally for. These changes are very strong. Originally designed for the darkness and evil. Can only be opened from the outside weather locked or not if I am not mistaken. Whoever made these cages was indeed an admirable craftsman." Athena said in an approving tone.

"Admiring the cages won't get us out of them." Jack pointed out.

"True but it's always good to take time to admire good craftsmanship even when you're imprisoned in it, but oh the irony of the situation." She replied.

"What's ironic about this?" Tooth asked.

"Silence!" Pitch's voice rang out viscously.

"Pitch wouldn't understand the irony of it because he hasn't regained those memories yet." Athena said, completely ignoring Pitch's command, she was scared but she wasn't going to show it, even when the one being spoken of appeared behind her and turned her around to face him. The second their eyes met she was sucked into darkness that felt like a thick liquid, almost like tar that quickly filled her lungs.

She almost panicked until she heard the familiar soft, dark laugh, which had always given her chills, cut through the darkness. She remembered the first time she heard that laugh, like Pitch's original laugh and voice it was smooth but much more menacing in the tone.

_It's not real. This is just a hallucination; you've experienced something like this before. It's fake so wake up!_

Athena's eyes flew open. Immediately she rolled over and started coughing violently. She felt her body force something from her lungs as she coughed and looked to see a black substance next to her. What she had been drowning in. She was actually drowning in the dark substance.

"Maybe you will stay quiet now." Pitch said before disappearing.

"Are you okay?" Tooth asked worriedly.

"Give me a minute." She replied as the coughing fit slowed down. She took a deep breath and said, "I'm okay."

"I thought he was going to kill you." Jack said.

"And I thought it was just a hallucination, but I was actually drowning. That's worse than the illusion of burning." She commented.

"What do you mean? Pitch has caused you to hallucinate like that before?" Tooth asked.

"No. The darkness, before it consumed him, it had made me believe that I was burning once. Pitch pulled me out of it and my skin was red, as if it had been sunburned but then it faded away. They're not just illusions. I think, if you can't get out of them then you could seriously be hurt or killed." Athena explained.

"…That is a terrifying thought." Tooth said, looking very uncomfortable. Jack was equally disturbed by the thought.

"Don't let him get the chance to do that. He knows fear and given the chance he can kill you with your fears." She told them.

"And if we have no fear of dying?" Jack asked.

"You don't need to know who he was to be able to make a good estimated guess. There are things that are still the same about him, but ultimately he's a different person, like a sadistic evil twin." She said with a dark expression, knowing their guess. He would likely make them relive their fears for as long as he wanted.

There was a heavy silence that lingered there until a beeping pierced through it like a hot knife through butter. The three looked down to see that it was Tooth's communicator. Sandy was calling her but since their stuff was down there she could not answer it.

"We have to find a way to answer it." Athena said.

"Why?" Jack asked.

"We can track each other with those remember? If Tooth doesn't answer then someone will come looking for it, right into a trap." She pointed out.

"How are we supposed to get to it? We're trapped in cages remember?" Tooth asked.

"Can't you use magic without your wand?" Jack questioned.

"Not really. I repaired my wand the same way you do your staff. Sheer willpower. Sometimes I can use magic without it but not consciously and I don't have control."

"So let's see, your wand has just enough magic to channel your own which is something you can't do without it. Yet you're quit literally a never-ending source of magic, have I got that right?" He clarified.

"Basically yes. I still have trouble understanding magic myself, even Hecate herself said it can be a very mysterious and unpredictable substance." She answered with a shrug.

"Hecate? The Greek mythology goddess of magic?" Tooth asked.

"Not mythology but yes, Greek goddess of magic." Athena corrected.

"Those guys are real?" Jack asked.

"Use to be. They faded away when Greece fell to Rome." She explained.

"Wow." Tooth breathed out.

"Wait so everything besides the Greek gods are real?" Jack questioned.

"It's a lot more complicated than that. Just don't think about it. The gods have faded okay? Don't think about the differences between the other religious beliefs. Don't think about it anymore than you have in the past." Athena advised.

"You do not know how to listen at all do you Athena? Your voice is like a knife to my ears so keep quiet or I will kill you next time!" Pitch said harshly, appearing below, by the globe.

"No you won't. I'm not afraid of death, that would ruin your fun." She responded, giving him a crooked smile. The sort of smile that made Pitch's mind spin. A short piece of memory flashed across his mind and an image of the same girl, younger, around fifteen at the time with her natural appearance, giving the same smile as a greeting, in the back of his mind he knew it was the third time the two had met. The brief confusion hit him just as it did so many years ago and he was sure that she was only giving that smile because she wanted to, not necessarily having crooked ideas to go with it. Just as he did back then, he found himself liking that smile.

**Me says hi!**: Well I didn't mean to make the chapter over a full page longer but I suppose it can be a little gift for it being late, because I wanted to have it finished by Saturday, but that obviously didn't happy. Exam week for my college is starting and I have a project that I need to finish before tomorrow as well as a million other things this week, hopefully I'll be done with chapter 7 this week but no promises.


	7. Chapter 7: A Little Battle of Wills

Chapter 7 A Little Battle of Wills

_Athena started to explore the deeper parts of the cave more. She knew nothing lived there but she still wanted to explore so each time she went to explore she would use a thick thread that she made with the map she was still working on and headed in. Over the next month or so Athena would visit the stream more often, finding it both relaxing and there was always the chance of seeing Kozmotis again. She would never admit it out loud but she wouldn't mind seeing him again to get to know him better. He was different from other people she had come into contact with. _

_Little did she know that Kozmotis also wanted to see her again. He admits that she does surprise him and catch him off guard but that made him all the more interested in knowing her better. Neither of them immediately thought about the other in a romantic way, only interested in the other because they are both so different from other people. _

_She settled on a boulder that sat above the water, watching it cascade off the waterfall and into the pool below. Most of the pool was frozen over but there was a circle where the water landed into the water that stayed open._

_Kozmotis left the cave to get a break and walked around aimlessly until he came across the stream at the pool. He noticed something out of the corner of his eye and turned to see Athena sitting on a boulder over the stream a little ways down. She was staring at the waterfall and seemed to be completely unaware of her surroundings other than what her attention was focused on. He wondered just how focused she was on the waterfall and decided to test it and see._

_He walked over to her yet she still didn't notice so he decided to try something a little mischievous and walked right up behind her and gave a little push, pulling her back before she actually fell off the rock while saying, "Don't fall."_

_She jumped with a surprised scream, whirling around to face him with his amused grin._

_"Why'd you do that? You almost pushed me into the water." She scolded._

_"You were very focused, I wanted to see if I could break it." He replied._

_"You did an excellent job with that along with thoroughly scaring me." She replied._

_"You scared? I find that hard to imagine." He said skeptically._

_"Everyone gets scared sometimes. Even if the present object of their fear isn't what scares them most." Athena answered._

_"Good point. But I still find it hard to imagine you being very scared." Kozmotis replied._

_"Well it's good to know that I do not make it obvious I suppose." She answered._

_"Why does it matter?" He asked._

_"When you know how to scare someone or what scares them most then you have a power over them, be a friend or enemy you still have that power over them, weather you realize it or not." She responded._

_"It seems that you would be right." He replied._

_She shrugged, to her things like that were common sense. The more you know about a person the easier it is to hurt them, the problem is finding someone who you can trust to know those things about you and will not use it to hurt you._

_After their fourth meeting they two saw each other at least once or twice a month and would usually spend about an hour together and became fast friends, becoming very comfortable around each other and knowing almost everything about the other._

_Almost everything._

_Athena still did not know about the prison, only that Kozmotis was a general in a special army. She had heard stories about the Golden Army but only those that were in the army or related to it knew if it actually existed or not. To everyone else it was a rumor and what the Army had fought against, no one knew, there were many theories, however none were very close to the truth._

_Almost a full year had passed. Athena would be turning sixteen, the day she will be considered a fully grown woman, in about a month while, technically, Kozmotis would be about twenty-five, however because of his aging having been slowed down he was likely no different than if he were four or five years younger. Why the gods had slowed his aging down when becoming the guard for the wretched prison he would never know and he was not foolish enough to question them either._

Again one of the communicators started to beep, it was Sandy calling but Jack's communicator and then Athena and Tooth's started up from Bunny and North. Pitch picked them up and studied them.

"These are odd. Of course Athena must have made them so of course they would be wouldn't they? Let's see who's should we answer? How about Jack's? Let's get that overgrown fur ball to come and visit us." Pitch said and pressed the button to answer.

"Crikey Jack took yah long enough to answer." Bunnymund's voice ran out through the room.

"Frost is a little preoccupied at the moment shall I take a message?" Pitch replied.

"Pitch? Where's Jack?" Bunny asked.

"Hanging out." Pitch replied, glancing up at the three Guardian's in the cages.

"Boo! Awful pun!" Athena booed loudly, simply to be obnoxious and irritating. Pitch shot her a glare but couldn't hide a hint of an amused smile.

"Athena?" Bunny asked.

"No it's your mom and if you know what is good for you you will not track the communicator. And don't bother trying to be all intimidating and scary Kozy, cause it won't stop me from being an obnoxious thorn in your side." She said loudly. Pitch had turned off the communicator by now and put it down, allowing them to ring.

"Were you like that when you were married?" Jack asked teasingly.

"Only when I was being goofy and seeing how long it would be before he got annoyed with it." Athena replied.

"Athena? Married? That's laughable. Your husband must not have been very bright." Pitch commented.

_Still don't remember it was you eh? Man I hope you get the rest of your memories back soon I want to see your face when you realize that you called yourself dim._ Athena thought. She, Jack and Tooth all exchanged amused expression, all snickering like middle schoolers in a sex ed class.

"You think what you want to, Pitch." _Eventually you'll get all of your memories back._ She finished in her head.

Not too far away a hole opened up and Bunny hopped out of it along with North and Sandy. Lucky for them Pitch nor the nightmares have noticed yet but there was no way they could go unnoticed for very long. Athena gave them an incredulous expression, her way of asking, 'What the hell are you idiots doing here?'

Sandy gave her a similar expression in return.

_Sandy is so sassy._ She thought with a roll of her eyes.

"What are you staring at?" Tooth asked curiously, as well as catching Pitch's attention. Athena wanted to shove a pillow into Tooth's mouth and briefly shot her a glare. Pitch looked over in the general direction Athena had been looking but the three dumb boys were gone.

"Who says I was looking at something? It's boring here I tend to stare off into space when I get bored." Athena replied casually but Pitch didn't believe it. Neither did Tooth nor Jack but they were not planning on questioning further.

"Since when do you stare off into space when you're bored? You have a hard time sitting still for more than a minute." Pitch said coldly, standing on black sand at their level. To further prove his point he indicated Athena's hands which were fiddling with some thread making different kinds of knots with it, undoing them and repeating the process, something she didn't even realize that she had been doing.

_Damn, I forgot that he knew that._ She thought sourly and stopped fiddling with the thread, but gave a challenging expression and said, "Well you looked over there too and obviously there is nothing there. I can stare off into space sometimes too."

"Maybe not now, but there was. As you've said, we know each other rather well, including when lying. My guess is that the other Guardians showed up."

"You think you know when I'm lying? So what? You want a gold star for it or something?" She asked.

"So you admit to lying." Pitch said, standing right behind her now, materializing from the shadows.

"I never said I lied, I merely question your point on think that you know when I'm lying. And will you stop appearing out of nowhere so close like that? It creeping me out, so just back up." She shoed him with her hands, "And go do whatever it is you need to and just ignore us or whatever."

Instead of stepping back Pitch too a step forward, knowing that it would bother her.

"It would seem that I'm not the only one with a listening problem. You realize that if you don't back off I will hurt you right?" She said while taking a step back. He took two steps forward.

"Dude, personal space. Back off before I kick you in the face." She said, becoming more nervous and agitated now.

He chuckled, being skeptic and said, "You can't do that. there's no way your foot could reach my face."

"Oh really? You wanna bet on that? Come on then. Step closer. I bet you I can and I will if you do not back off and go away because the way you are right now, you are the last person I want to be within five feet of, you are within that mark so back up." She said.

Pitch didn't believe her of course, Athena could tell and immediately swung her leg around and put her foot on Pitch's shoulder, right next to his face with a proud expression on her face and asked, "You were saying oh wise Nightmare King?" She wiggled her converse shoe, tapping him on the side of the head for more emphasis before putting it back on the floor of the cage as the two glared at each other having a battle of wills.

_Well this was an unexpected direction to go in, but it is keeping him distracted._ Athena thought while keeping eye contact.

Pitch was having completely different thoughts during their battle of wills stare down. He couldn't help but recognize Athena's smell, candy apples and apple cider, an odd combination that went together well. _Athena doesn't even like apples. Wait where did that come from?_

A stab of pain erupted in the back of his head but he ignored it and was now distracted by her hair. _Rainbow isn't a bad look for Athena. Although I do miss her long hair, it was so pretty and sparkled in the light. What the? Why am I having these thoughts?_ Another stab of pain, this time he had no choice but to react to it, it was becoming too irritating so he looked away and left the cage returning back to the globe, not yet noticing that Jack's staff, Tooth's weapons, Athena's wand and broom were no longer where he had left them.

"Ha!" Athena declared triumphantly with her small victory.

**Author's corner:** What's up all? Hope everyone is having a good Winter break. I must apologize for this chapter. I feel that it is okay, if you like it great! If not then I'm sorry, I did have more plans for it to go ahead and get some battle and escape stuff going but I've taken long enough on this chapter and wanted to go ahead and cut it off here. Bonus! A bug has been passed from two of my friends (sister passes it to sister) and it got passed on to me and my (twin) sister and I feel like crap and want to sleep (no Katherine and Madison it's not your fault that's just what happens when you willing share a bed with a sick person) but it's just one of those times where everything has to get done at once so of course you have to get sick too and I won't be home at all tomorrow so I wanted to go ahead and post the chapter so I started the battle of wills thing to get some things rolling while still being able to kind of close the chapter. Also there will probably be grammar/spelling mistakes, I kind of just skimmed when reviewing.

Antyways I am generally happy with the chapter, not the original plan (let's face it when do plans ever actually work?) but it doesn't change the direction really so it's all good!

So yeah I think I will try to get some sleep and be ready for the even busier day tomorrow. I hope to have the next chapter done by...Monday? Probably...if not and you actually care then you can send me angry messages or whatever.

Goodnight all, thanks for reading, favoriting, reviewing, and subscribing it really does mean a lot to me!


	8. Chapter 8: Family Tree

Chapter 8 Family Tree

_As usual Kozmotis wandered the prison doing rounds. The fearlings had started talking to him again, taunting him and trying to tempt him to open their cages. It was usually very easy for him to ignore them because there was little he feared, until recently when he made the mistake of allowing his mind to wander. It wandered to his good friend Athena whom he had started to develop romantic feelings for._

_**A friend? You've made a new friend? She won't stay for long you know. You can't hide everything from her.**_

_"Be quiet." Kozmotis snapped and forced himself to think about something else and continued on up a staircase and down a hall._

_Athena was exploring deeper into the cave with a torch and extra supplies along with the thread she made just for cave exploring. She had yet to go as far as she had today and wanted to continue a little further. She was there long enough for her first torch to die out, almost burning her hand ad dropped it, being plunged into darkness. She didn't mind though, she could hear and smell fine and it would only take a little bit for her to light a new one having made, somewhat a version of what is known today as a match._

_She didn't notice that she had moved a little closer to the edge of a slope she was planning on avoiding, slipped and fell. Sliding down through a winding tunnel that had likely been made by water a long time ago. _

_"Whoa!" She yelled before falling. She slid faster and faster and completely lost sense of direction and time before being dumped out onto a cold rock floor only a few feet below the tunnel. She slid a good thirty feet and slowly sat up, dizzy and disoriented._

_"That was more fun than I ever want to have again." She mumbled to herself and looked around in amazement at the room. It was enormous and had a mixture of torch light and natural light to keep it lit. There were different staircases for different levels of stone halls that overlooked the place and hundreds of dark, large cages hanging._

_"Wow. This is an odd place." She breathed out and walked down the hall she landed in while looking around. She noticed movement in the cages, odd dark creatures that seemed to be whispering amongst themselves until they noticed Athena there._

_**A girl. A new person is here. Athena! It is the Athena girl!**__ They said in whispery voices amongst themselves_

_How do they know who I am?__ She wondered but didn't say anything in response._

_**We have our ways of knowing. But that is not important. would you please help us? We have been trapped here for years. Wrongly imprisoned by the Golden Army.**__ One responded._

_She walked down the steps to get a better look but stayed a safe distance, about fifteen feet away from the closest cage._

_"The Golden Army? It's real?" She asked, surprised._

_**Very real. Was led by a horrible man who wrongly imprisoned us. **__ Another added. _

_"Yes, I understand the supposed wrongly imprisoned part but I do not know you. I do not know if I can believe you or not. Besides the rumors of the Golden Army says that they fought against evil, heartless creatures." Athena replied, she had a ominous feeling creeping around and wanted to get out of the place. She didn't trust, whatever those things were and wanted to be as far from them as possible. They freaked her out. She looked around the room, trying to find a way out. She started walking towards the wall, to stay as far from the cages as she could get and ended up walking a little too close to one. _

_A shadow hand grabbed her hair and pulled her closer to the cage as others grabbed her and help pull her closer._

_She screamed in surprise and fought them, trying to escape their grasp._

_"Let go of me!" She shouted, trying to pull away when she suddenly felt a burning sensation on her arms, shoulders and neck, where the creatures had a hold of her. She looked at her arm to see an odd black fire burning her skin and spreading quickly. The pain was intense and was spreading fast._

_Athena let out a scream of pain and struggled harder to escape._

_Kozmotis heard a surprised scream of a familiar voice but he couldn't place who it sounded like until he heard the same voice yelling and then screaming in pure agony. He knew who's voice it was then. Immediately he whirled around and raced back down the hall and looked around the room until he saw the match of the voice. Athena fighting and struggling against the fearlings who had reached through the bars to grab at her._

_He knew exactly what they were doing to her and was there in seconds, his sword out and sliced at the arms of the fearlings. They let go and pulled back in pain, letting Athena go who fell to her hands and knees with bright red skin, as if she had been burned all over._

_Kozmotis picked her up bridal style and carried her to safer place. Athena trembled and shivered violently while clinging to him, the pain and illusions still fresh in her mind. Normally when someone is burned the pain doesn't last as long as one would think because the nerves are burned away, this illusion did not work that way, it simply continued to burn._

_He stopped in one of the bedrooms that were there in case they were needed, but were never used and wasn't sure if Athena would let go of him long enough to put her down so he just sat down with her on his lap, still clinging to him but was not trembling as badly._

_"Are you alright?" He asked her after a few minutes. She nodded and asked, "What are those things?"_

_"Fearlings. Evil, sadistic beings who rule in the darkness and know the fears of others and uses it against them." Kozmotis explained._

_"Are you the one they were talking about? The one who imprisoned them? A leader of the Golden Army?" She asked after thinking things through for a few minutes and using that time to also calm down. She became aware of the fact that she was sitting on her friend's lap but didn't mind and let her head stay resting against his shoulder._

_He let out a sigh and said, "General of the Golden Army and jailer of the fearlings and darkness."_

_"So the Golden Army has been real and I end up befriending it's general hu?" She replied._

_"I understand if something like this freaks you out." Kozmotis said._

_"What? Are you expecting me to never speak to you again or something? So you've kept a few secrets from me, who doesn't keep a few secrets really?" She responded._

Sandy flew up to Tooth's cage and returned her things to her and tossed Jack's staff to him, by that time the Nightmares and fearlings noticed him and started alerting Pitch, who had disappeared down one of the halls and was back immediately, appearing in Jack's cage behind him.

"Jack!" Tooth warned as Pitch's scythe formed and swung at him. Immediately he ducked and let the scythe slice the bars and jumped out of the cage while North helped Tooth out and Sandy tossed Athena's wand and broom to her. She blasted the door open and jumped out.

"Bunny get us out of here." North called.

"I'm a little busy at the moment North." Bunny called back, hoping around the room attacking and dodging Nightmares.

"Then get your cotton tail over here so we can go." Athena called and opened a portal, waiting for everyone to get through while firing one destructive spell after another at the nightmares that were trying to get through after the other Guardians.

"Where's Jack?" Athena asked as Bunny made his way to the portal.

The two looked around and finally spotted the white haired teenager. He was still fighting Pitch, and not doing so well either. Athena sighed, "You'll want to leave Bunny. This will probably make your ears bleed." She the created a megaphone and pressed the button but didn't speak yet, she allowed it to ring and blare for a little bit. It echoed loudly through the cavernous lair, catching everyone off guard. She then spoke into it, "Jack get your butt down here, we have places to go, candy to eat, people to protect and a holiday and season to run so leave the fighting for another day."

She shot another spell at a nightmare, blasting it apart before using a summoning spell she had come up with, it worked on living beings but used a good chunk of energy, of course many spells did but it was rare for Athena to use a summoning spell on a living being. She forced Jack across the room and through the portal with the spell; she gave Pitch a smile and wave saying, "Well this was an interesting visit, however I must bid you adieu for now."

"Yes for now." He replied, giving a smile in return, a knowing smile that disturbed her but she did not allow herself to express this before exiting and closing the portal.

"That was a little too easy. Should that really have been that easy?" Bunnymund questioned.

"No it shouldn't have. Before I left he had this knowing smile. A disturbing one that I couldn't read." Athena replied frustrated by this. Knowing someone as long as Athena knew Pitch she typically can read his expressions well just as he with hers, although right after he became Pitch Black he didn't know why.

"So he let you distract him?" Tooth asked, confused. A gold question mark appeared above Sandy, he being just as confused as the others.

"I do not believe that part was on purpose, or at least if it was on purpose he can act a lot better than I thought he could. But I think he simply found a way to make the situation work to his advantage." Athena replied.

"And what would that be I wonder?" North asked, more to bring up the question that everyone was thinking.

"Honestly...I'm afraid to find out." Athena replied.

This disturbed the rest of the Guardians. If Athena was scared, it was definitely something to worry about, they may still not know her well but they did know one thing, she did not openly admit or express he real thoughts or feelings often. Sure they knew the gist of her history with Pitch, but that didn't mean they knew what she thought or felt about it, that was something she kept a tight lid on.

"Well, anyway a bunch of new horror attractions are being open around the world and a new Saw movie in 3D is being released so I'll be going on to oversee it all. We still need to keep eyes out for trouble, but for now let's try and relax a little. I don't know what the point of trapping us was but whatever the reason for it I don't like it, or the reason for letting us escape so easily. Let's continue with doing our own thing and continue trying to keep the fearlings and nightmares at bay until we figure something out." She said after a few minutes of silence.

"Is that really a good idea? Going back to our own work and just keeping an eye out?" Tooth asked.

"Sometimes you have to take a step back to see better. Think about other things and come back to the problem later." Athena replied. The other's agreed and headed off on their own. Night was soon falling so Sandy headed off to send out good dreams to children while Jack took the window around to blow the leaves off of trees.

Athena opened a portal, flying off to the first attraction location in Banff, Alberta. The Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel and it's numerous ghost sightings and stories were always a major attraction during Halloween and this year they were starting something new, a surprise to go along with it.

Throughout the night Athena flew all around the world overseeing, protecting, helping or generally looking out at many different locations will all kinds of attractions and movies going on. Less than three weeks away from Halloween and the Halloween celebrating countries getting more in the spirit as each day passed.

_Wish Halloween was a big thing when I was growing up. That would have been so much fun._ Athena thought with a smile while flying around and helping towns and cities or neighborhoods decorate and giving people new and creative ideas as she flew by, right through the people. She had long ago grown use to not being seen and left alone by the other spirits. For a long time after her last relatives who believed in her died she grew depressed and suddenly started to accept it and watch over her descendants.

For a long time the family name had been Taylor until they had one daughter and she married someone with the last name of Frost. That family name ended after Jack had died and was resurrected by Man in the Moon while his sister grew up and married. After two hundred years the name changed again to Bennett on one side of the family while the other changed to Fenton. The two families still had the names but were not closely connected anymore.

Athena looked over her family tree, allowing it to act of its own accord as two new names and faces appeared on the Fenton branch of the family. One of the sons had married a year ago and they just had twins, boy and girl. She smiled to herself and checked the Bennett side, of course it was still unchanged since Jamie and Sophie were still much too young to even be thinking about marriage or having children.

_I should probably show the tree to Jack, or at least the part concerning his family in connection to Jamie's._ She thought while making the tree disappear.

**My despicable self:** I am a despicable human being! I am so sorry for being two days late! I've been much busier than I thought I would be (no help to the cold or whatever the fuck I've got) but I am slowly but surely getting better! No excuses! So yes I am very sorry and I am sorry if I missed some spelling/grammar stuff. As you can see this does have just as much past stuff as present. It was completely intended because I knew when I got to that point of the past it would be longer. To make up for being late if you want send me a message or review for a small spoiler (past or present sections) or something (I don't know whatever since I'm really not completely sure how to make up for updating late besides something like that because I can't choose my updating speed, if I could I definitely would).

But anyways thank you for reading/reviewing/subscribing/favoriting! They honestly do mean a lot and I always read/respond to reviews and try to take into consideration of what people say. If there are ideas you all want to share feel free and I will try and incorporate any and all of them into the story :)


	9. Chapter 9: Losing

Chapter 9 Losing 

_"Where in the world do you come up with such ideas?" An engineer by the name of Victor asked Athena. He was the first person in the city to take Athena seriously in inventing, now they always worked together._

_Athena shrugged and replied, "I do not know. I just do. How is it that you come up with your ideas?"_

_"Right. Of course I suppose you could not explain any easier than I." He replied as they two looked over prints Athena had made, blueprints on how to pump water into buildings. A project that would take a long time to get right._

_"If we could make this idea work then it would be revolutionary. No one would have to leave their house for water to cook if we can get it working for all." He exclaimed._

_"Working on a new project Athena?" The familiar smooth voice of Kozmotis asked, standing behind his friend._

_She turned around to face him with a smile, always happy to see him, having never done so outside of the forest either._

_"Yes. A way to be able to pump water into the homes of the people." She replied and added, "I'm sorry I'm being rude. Victor this is Kozmotis. Kzmotis, Victor."_

_"Ah is he your lover?" Victor questioned with a sly grin. He and Athena had developed a friendship over the past few years of working together, he had quickly learned that she was fun to tease and immediately caught on that she liked Kozmotis by the look on her face when she heard his voice from behind. He decided to embarrass her a little._

_"W-what? We are good friends I told you this." Athena stuttered while blushing lightly._

_Victor could see that he had embarrassed Kozmotis as well._

_Ah so they do like each other but do not know it. I think I could have some fun with this.__ Victor thought, being a very mischievous person, but not being able to express it very often. His wife didn't mind it very much but most of his friends found it a little annoying after a while._

_"Right, terribly sorry I forgot, it is just that the way Athena has spoken of you it seems you are very close." Victor replied._

_"We are." Kozmotis answered._

_"Well I think we are done for the day. I will set up a meeting so that we may show your new plans to the council for approval. Have a nice day you two." Victor said while rolling up the scrolls and handing them back to Athena._

_"Alright, see you tomorrow." Athena replied as he headed off to work on another project._

_"First time seeing you in town." Athena commented._

_"Likewise. I was actually hoping to see you today." Kozmotis answered._

_"For?" Athena asked._

_"I wanted to invite you to go to the Winter Solstice ball with me." He replied._

_Me? a-are you sure? I mean I'm really not the kind of person you'd want to take to a ball, wouldn't you rather take another girl? Someone more...lady-like?" Athena asked, feeling embarrassed, taking Kozmotis off guard. _

_Since when are you self conscious?__ He wondered but had to admit it was adorable they way she acted when embarrassed._

_"You know you could say no." He replied._

_"No! I mean that's not what I meant, it's just that I did not expect anyone to want to go with me. I'd probably just embarrass you." She tried to explain. He sighed in his 'will you just answer please?' sort of way that she recognized. It would be followed by a similar phrase so she added, "I-if you are being serious then I would like to go with you."_

_Kozmotis smiled, his soft golden eyes lighting up. Athena smiled back, seeing that he was serious when he asked._

Athena landed on the ground hard. It was only a week away from Halloween and the Guardians had only barely slowed down Pitch's gaining power. She rolled out of the way as the large double bladed scythe came down and imbedded itself into the ground right where she had been a split second ago.

"Have you ever noticed that you have some gray hair? I had noticed that a couple of weeks ago but I didn't think much about it until now. Those fearlings inside you don't do much for your health do they? Not that they ever did, they always stressed you out even if you tried to hide it." Athena commented, jumping to her feet and blocked the scythe with the blade of a chain scythe. Pitch pulled back and swung again, this time Athena ducked and allowed one of her chain scythe blades to catch onto Pitch's scythe and used the other to yank it from his hands and threw it about thirty feet away. The blade stuck into the ground and had taken her weapon with it, leaving the two weaponless.

"How is it that you seem to remember your life before you died but I cannot remember my human life well?" Pitch asked, starting to become tired of the comments about his life before but not being able to remember much of it.

"Because I was given and accepted my new life. Yours was forced upon you when the fearlings took over your body. It would have been hard for them to continue to corrupt your mind and personality if you retained your memories. That's my guess at least." She replied, immediately she jumped to the side as his scythe appeared in his hand again and swung.

"How dare you strike at a weaponless opponent." Athena said in a mockingly offended tone and created a temporary magic shield to protect herself with until North's sleigh came around. Bunnymund grabbed Athena by the back of the hoddie she was wearing and pulled her into the sleigh as it flew off.

Athena was about to question why they were fleeing until she went to the back of the sleigh to see a sea of nothing but black sand, thunder and lightning in pursuit.

"How did he get so powerful so quickly?" Athena asked.

"Children all over are having nightmares regardless of his influence because of time of year. Not only is it Halloween but it's also a part of year where many storms form easily and there have been many around the world the past month, spreading fear as well as the children having nightmares and fearing horror movies and haunted houses. We need help, we have to stop the spread of fear." North responded.

"That's impossible." She replied and sat on the back of the sleigh with her head in her hands looking at her feet.

"Then how are we supposed to stop him before Halloween?" Bunny questioned.

"I'll think of something." She responded.

"You'll think of something? That's your response? You say you know Pitch but you're just as clueless as the rest of us." He responded.

"Go suck an egg and let me think!" Athena snapped in frustration, giving them all a confused expression because they had surprised expressions themselves.

"What? Sorry for getting snappy but I don't like being questioned while trying to think." She said.

"That's not it. Pitch had said the same thing to Bunny when he first came around with the nightmare sand." Tooth said.

"So? Probably unconsciously remembered it and it ended up being a fitting phrase to tell the Eater Bunny to bug off. Katherine had said it to a bully once when she was little. Unfortunately I had more influence over her behavior than her father so she was more outspoken during a time where women with such traits were not treated very well." She responded.

"Then what influence did Pitch have over her child development?" Jack asked out of curiosity.

"Interests." She replied without hesitation.

"Like?" He asked.

"Ask me another time and I'll tell you. Right now we need to at least make a dent in getting rid of this black sand. Sandy? Jack? Will you help me?" She responded.

"With what?" Jack asked, Sandy didn't question, just smiled and nodded. Athena concentrated and created what looked like a rocket launcher.

"I need help in creating the ammunition for this thing. If it works like it should then we'll be firing ice and dreamsand rockets to change and destroy as many of those nightmares as we can." She explained.

"The last time you did something like this is weakened you and Sandy. What will this one do?" Tooth asked concerned.

"It's shouldn't take as much out of us since three of us will be working together on it. But no matter what it is if it required us using our abilities it will tire us to a degree." Athena responded.

"How do we do this?" Jack asked.

"You two put a hand on the launcher and focus on making a rocket for it, it'll do the rest and then I'll fire it." She said. They did as she said until a beautiful rocket was lauded into the launcher. It was rocket shaped but ice and golden sand swirled together. Athena waved her wand and it launched, exploding in the sea of black, a shower of snow, black and gold sand spread and fell from the sky. The three continued this until North threw a snow globe to open a portal that closed behind them.

"That worked well." Tooth said with a smile.

"Sorry to be the damper but it didn't help very much and it's not very efficient. Have to think of something better. Right now we aren't doing so hot against these stupid nightmares even if we don't fear them." Athena replied as the sleigh landed. They were at the Tooth Palace so Tooth could work easier while they collaborated. Sandy was okay to work there as well since it's now nighttime in region.

"What do you mean it's not efficient?" North asked.

"It occupies half of us, yes the thing can pack a punch but it is a very good opening for other nightmares to attack us. Gah! I can't focus." She said through gritted teeth and started muttering under her breath as different projectiles and other weapons appeared at her feet along with a number of other odd gizmos and gadgets.

"What are you doing?" Bunnymund questioned.

"Tossing ideas. Helps me focus better if I get other ideas in my head out to make space. I'll sort them out on who would have better use out of them later." She replied as more things appeared around them. After a few minutes she stopped letting out a sigh and rubbing her temples before getting up and moving things around and muttered to herself before summoning her broom and flew off into the night sky.

"Whoa where she going?" Bunny asked. A shape of a moon appeared above Sandy's head in response.

"To the moon? Why?" He asked. Sandy shrugged.

"She does talk about Manny in high regards even if she created him. Perhaps she is seeking advice from a good friend." North suggested and picked up a few of the items Athena had created and started to test them out to see what they did and who could use them.

_Your mind is not usually so full that you cannot focus. What is troubling you?_ The moon asked Athena.

"Everything. I feel like the answer to freeing Pitch from the fearlings is right in front of me and I can't even think of anything good enough to help destroy the nightmare sand. I wish I could talk to Pitch without any fighting involved. Maybe if I could help him remember his human life the real him could fight the darkness inside him." She replied.

_I don't think it will be that easy. The fearlings will not allow something like that to happen so easily. They are vengeful beings and relish in having control over the man who defeated them the first time. I have been fighting to keep them at bay and it has slowed down the spread of more fear for nightmares but the fearlings have still been gaining strength, giving Pitch more strength to create nightmares._ Man in the Moon replied.

"Can they not create the nightmares on their own?" Athena asked.

_It seems they cannot. They need Pitch to control the nightmares and gain more power for the fearlings he controls as well._ He replied.

"Pitch is the fearlings ticket to power as well as their only way to control and creating the nightmares as well as their vessel." She said to herself, mostly to keep things straight.

_It would seem so._

"Do you think you would be able to help us out here? I think I have an idea." She asked.

_I will do what I can._ The moon replied.

**Hello all:** Bonjour! Comment ça va? Sorry for slow updating, stuff gets in the way and my brain gets distracted. Anyways I think I will be enlisting help from anyone who wants to help. I will be needing a couple new characters because war will be upon the world soon so the Guardians will be in need of help and I will need ideas for a couple of new characters to help out when that time comes. Ideas for characters are fine, human/spirit/other species or OC's are acceptable. Just send me a message or let me know in a review if you have an OC or an idea for a character that I can use to create one myself and I will go from there when the time comes for them to show up. I have yet to determine how many/few I will need so there's no limit right now. Thank you all for your continued support!


	10. Chapter 10: Memories

Chapter 10 Memories

_"You look so pretty!" Helen gushed. No it is not the same Helen who caused the Trojan war. This Helen is Victor's wife._

_"Helen. I look like a wannabe Aphrodite. Can we tone it down a little bit?" Athena asked._

_"Are you sure?" Helen asked._

_"This hair style seems more suited for fashion or a wedding." She replied._

_"Great I'll keep that in mind whenever you decide to get married." Helen responded and changed Athena's hairstyle to something more simple to tone down._

_"Better?" She asked._

_"Yes, thank you. For helping me get ready and helping me find a dress." Athena replied._

_"Not a problem, I've heard much about you from Victor I have been wanting to meet you and when he told me that you needed help with getting ready for the ball I had to take advantage." She replied with a smile. Athena gave a small smile in return and looked at her reflection in the pail of water nearby. Her wavy hair hung down around her shoulders freely instead of back in the braid she always kept it in. Her bangs were braided and pulled back around her head to the back. She wore a simple but elegant black and white dress with an orange drape that had a dark blue swirl design on it._

_Helen wore her dark red hair half up and curly with a dark green dress and a silver and red drape._

_"Come on! Kozmotis and Victor are probably waiting! I can't wait to meet him, he'll be in awe when he sees how pretty you look. Not that you aren't pretty anyways but still." Helen said, while pulling Athena out of the house to the plaza where they agreed to meet Victor and Kozmotis. As Helen had predicted the two were already there facing away from the two girls as they approached._

_Helen took her husbands hand and the two young men turned around._

_"Are you two ready? Would have thought you could have helped Helen learn how to be ready faster." Victor said to Athena._

_"Excuse me but it was not my fault, Athena did not like the first hairstyle." Helen replied._

_"Why not?" Kozmotis asked her._

_"She says she looked like a wannabe Aphrodite. Or suited for a wedding." Helen replied._

_"Well it's true." Athena replied with a shrug._

_"Well let's not waste more time." Victor said and started walking with Helen. _

_"You look lovely Athena." Kozmotis said to her and held out his arm. She smiled, a blush crossing her face and took his arm as the two followed._

_Athena felt very much out of place at the ball and she could tell that she wasn't the only one. Many of the common women and men seemed to feel out of place but were having fun none the less._

_"Would you care to dance?" Kozmotis asked Athena holding out a hand. She smiled and took it as they joined others in dancing._

_"I am honestly surprised that you dance." Kozmotis commented._

_"I haven't in a long time but even an odd person such as myself does enjoy more normal things from time to time." Athena replied as they continued to dance to the song that was playing, they rarely spoke, just danced and enjoyed each other's company._

_It seemed that no time at all passed by before the song slowly ended and the two found themselves looking into each others eyes. On impulse they both moved closer, eyes closing and shared a tender kiss._

_What are you going to do?_ Moon asked Athena.

"Something stupid and crazy." Athena replied.

_Will it work?_

"Yes...most likely...maybe...hopefully." She answered and flew off before her friend could try to talk her out of it. She waved her wand and a ball, similar to North's globe appeared.

"Find Pitch Black, I have a message for him." She commanded and gave the message before tossing the ball into the air and whacked it with a magical tennis racket that appeared in her hand. It went flying with a stream of orange and purple sparkly magic flying behind it and disappeared from sight.

The ball dove into the a hole and rolled to a stop at Pitch's feet and started bouncing until it was at his shoulder level and floated there, starting to glow orange and project an image of Athena above.

He stared at the image questioningly.

"I see it found you without any problems. I think we need to talk. No tricks, no violence, just a peaceful chat." Athena said.

"Why?" Pitch asked.

"You're missing memories. I think I know a way that can help you get some of them back." She replied.

A part of Pitch desperately wanted to believe that what she said was true, after all he did know her in his human life. But another part, the part that the fearlings had a tight grip on started to protest.

"What makes you think I care?" Pitch demanded.

"I know you do. Besides you said so yourself." She responded.

After a few minutes of internal struggle he replied, "Fine. When and where?"

"Do you remember the river, the third time we met?" She questioned.

A brief image appeared in his mind, "Yes."

"There. Tomorrow night at midnight for that time zone. Remember no tricks, no violence, just peaceful chatting." She responded.

"I look forward to it." He responded with a creepy smile that put Athena on edge but she wasn't going to back down. She cut the transmission and the ball fell to the floor, lifeless. Pitch picked it up and studied it. It was now an ordinary bouncy ball.

Athena kept up with the time the rest of the night and the next day while flying around the world doing her job and would visit small children when they got scared and would give them candy or help them find their parents. That was the only time she was seen was when she masqueraded as a human and directly helped as long as she was dressed up. She could never be seen as herself, but it didn't bother her much. She got use to it after her grandchildren passed away.

"Athena!" She immediately recognized the voice to be Jack's and turned her head as he caught up, riding the wind.

"You had mentioned the other week that you knew something about my family." He said.

"Um, yeah, I just thought that you and Jamie would like to know that you're related. Well Jamie is a descendant of your sister so distantly related." She responded.

"I thought you said that you only keep up with your descendants?" He said confused and then put it together, "Wait. If you know that Jamie is one of my descendants then does that mean we're your descendants?"

"You are correct." Athena replied.

"And...we're Pitch's descendants too. Oh my god that is a weird thought." He answered.

"Not that Pitch is aware of this." She pointed out.

"But Jamie is one of my family's descendants! That's so cool I have to go tell him!" Jack said and did a flip through the air.

"You have fun with that." Athena answered.

"You have to come with me! You can show us our family tree right?" He asked.

"I can but not right now. I have to go meet someone." She responded.

"Who?" Jack questioned.

Athena hesitated, but decided that she should maintain trust with the other Guardians so at least one of them should know what she was going to do.

"I'm going to go meet with Pitch. Now before you start questioning I'm going to see if I can help him get the rest of his memories back. Maybe if he had all of his memories then, it'll be able to...I don't know help loosen the hold the fearlings have on him. If it doesn't work, well then it wouldn't really make any difference anyways, he'd understand comments I make at least." She replied.

"That is both stupid and crazy...good luck." He remarked.

"Glad to see you're not freaking out." She commented.

"You'll do it anyways and besides you can take care of yourself. Don't forget to show us our family tree, I want to see who my sister married." Jack said before sailing off on the wind. Athena checked the time and headed off as well towards Europe, where the island Athens use to reside. She landed outside the cave where she spent a lot of time working on projects and for a long time had been her home. She then headed to the river, it had gotten wider and deeper over the years but was generally the same besides that.

"You're late." The familiar smooth voice said, sitting on a rock nearby.

Athena checked the time and said, "By two minutes; sorry I had some news to tell a relative."

"Relative?"

"Jack Frost. One of our descendants." She responded.

"Our?" Pitch questioned.

"Yes. You came here to learn about your human life. You won't believe it but we were married...technically we still are." She responded.

"You're right I don't believe that because it's absurd." He responded.

"Oh is it? I found that you had dropped this. Been keeping it safe for you. You'll recognize the girl on it, that's Katherine. She was also on that tapestry I made of us, our family. Inside the locket is your wedding ring. I have one too. One of the random little things we have in common is that we don't like wearing rings all the time so we kept them in the lockets and wore or carried those instead and wore our rings whenever we felt like it." Athena said and held up a locket with a picture of their daughter on it. Athena pulled hers out from under her jacket.

A flash of recognition appeared on Pitch's face as he reached out for the locket. Athena closed the distance and put it in his hand. He studied it for a minute or so before popping it open and let the ring drop out and into his hand. On the inside was a smaller picture. A wedding picture, originally had been painted, of himself with Athena who had the same picture inside her locket as well. Their friends Victor and Helen made the lockets for them as wedding presents and Helen added the image of Katherine after she got older.

"Us? Married? How did that happen?" Pitch asked with an amused laugh. Athena use to love Pitch's laugh but nowadays it sounded dark and sadistic.

"In all honestly that was something neither of us really understood. I suppose we were just alike and different enough to make it work." Athena responded.

"You think this silly locket will help me remember?" He asked.

"I hoped it might help." She replied.

"Anything else you want to tell me? You think 'might help'?" He questioned.

"Actually yes. I didn't know very much about your past before we met. But I did also find this when I found the locket...after you became Pitch Black. I admit that I did read it. Maybe if you read it you might gain some more memories." Athena pulled out a thick journal, Pitch's military journal. She handed it over to him and watched him as he opened it and flipped through it and closed it again.

"Is that all?" He questioned.

"Yes I suppose for now. Have a nice night." Athena responded turning away but then noticed that Pitch had disappeared followed by a laugh, which of course was never good. She did a 360 degree turn, listening for sounds but heard nothing.

Swoosh!

"Yeek!" Athena squeaked and ducked in time to miss her head being sliced off, although the blade did cut some strands of hair.

"Hey what happened to no weapons?" She demanded before jumping out of the way.

"You ended the little meeting so terms for it are off as well." Pitch responded.

"Oh whatever. I don't have time for a fight. Ta, ta." Athena responded with a little wave and allowed a portal to pull her through.

She sat at the top of a high tree, staring at her own locket.

_It didn't work. I couldn't even tell if he actually remembered anything._ She thought sadly and let out a sigh. A little tooth fairy stopped and floated before her with a questioning expression.

"Hey little tooth fairy. How are you tonight?" Athena asked and held up her hand for the little fairy to sit on. The fairy smiled and returned with her questioning expression again.

"Oh, I'm okay, just a little disappointed that a plan didn't work as well as I'd hoped." Athena responded with a shrug. The little fairy stared at her blankly.

"It's nothing to worry about. I'd get that tooth back to the palace so it can be put away safely." Athena said and held out her hand as the little fairy gave a wave and flew off.

"Oh my gods they're so adorable I'm gonna die!" Athena gushed. She had rarely seen the baby fairies and never up close so she had to gush about it.

**hello all:** Yes I know the ending was a little odd, my sister already told me. It wasn't supposed to be any kind of cliffhanger or anything like that I just wanted to bring the fairies in a little since they kind of come and go all night it's not really a surprise to see some every so often if you're also flying around at night. But yeah sorry for taking so long on this chapter, school has started back, uhh -.- but it looks like I'll have some good classes, but I might also have a good amount of work, for now I only have 3 since one of them, the room it's in is under construction so it won't be starting until February (yay!).

But yeeaaahhh...I believe I have 2 OC's and a character idea (so that's 3). I am willing to take more if anyone is interested.

Thank you to **Mikomi121:** For the idea**; , and Phantom of the Black Pearl:** for the OC's

I am off to bed so goodnight all!


	11. Chapter 11: Halloween Morning

Chapter 11 Halloween Morning

_When Athena's sixteenth birthday came around she, as usual, treated it like any other day, but it seems that Victor had found out when her birthday was, likely rooting through files the city had on people such as the day of their birth, and he spread the word from his wife to other people who worked with her and of course to Kozmotis, whom he had also befriended._

_He had also been trying to find out Kozmotis' birthday as well but had no luck. So he would try to pester him later about it._

_"You never told me your birthday was today." Kozmotis said as he walked up to Athena who was sitting by the riverside, where they often were able to find one another easily if they couldn't find them anywhere else._

_"My birthday is no different than any other day besides to remind me of when I should start telling people something different for my age. And you've never told me your birthday either." She responded._

_"Well I don't really know my birthday. I know the month but not the day." He replied._

_"Oh." She responded in understanding and asked, "So what month?"_

_"The tenth." He responded._

_"Good to know." She answered._

_"Don't plan anything." He said._

_"What makes you think I'm going to?" She asked in fake surprise._

_"We've known each other for about four years now. I know the expression you are wearing. It is the expression you have when an idea or plan starts to form in your mind." He replied thoughtfully_

_"Well then. Ruin my fun then." She responded. He smiled and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her closer saying, "You make it too easy."_

_"I most certainly do not." She protested._

_"You do. Accept it or try to not be so conspicuous." Kozmotis answered. Athena made an attempt to pout but it was an amusing sight. Kozmotis chuckled in amusement._

_"Pouting does not work for you dear." He said to her._

_Athena sighed sadly saying, "Of course not."_

_"Do not let it depress you." He said to reassure her._

_"Oh I'm not, I just wanted to see if that would work. It seems that it did." She replied with a smile._

_Kozmotis rolled his eyes with an amused smile, "Okay so that worked a little. But if you want pouting to work then you'll have to work on your pout."_

_"I do not believe I need to work on pouting if simply acting sad works just as well." She replied._

_"You mean it works better." He corrected._

_"Right." She replied._

Halloween came on a Friday this year. Luckily, so students and adults could be out late without worrying about school or work. Although it made no difference for the Guardians. Sandy often worked harder during Halloween because of the scary stuff and kids getting bad dreams because of them. After Halloween was when Tooth worked harder, like after any other candy and sweets filled holiday. Jack wasn't working very hard since all he did during fall was bring the wind that blew the leaves off the trees. Bunnymund did virtually nothing besides help Athena. She taught him how to carve pumpkins and let him spread candy and decorations but had to get on his case several times about carving and decorating Easter related things.

North was starting to work harder but helped out when he could just as Jack and Tooth did. Jack was the only one of the four who could help that did not have a problem with the style of decorating. The others were too high strung about scaring the kids.

"North, part of Halloween is to experience fear, finding joy in fear. If you don't want to do anything scary then decorate with bats and black cats or simple things. Candy or decorate for those celebrating Samhain or Día de los Muertos. Come up with food ideas for those having a feast for the dead, send recopies something. We don't need to do much for scary. The humans and Pitch have that covered." Athena said patiently while flicking her wand almost non stop from one direction to another with different colors of streams of magic flying out the window.

"Um what are all those streams of magic?" Jack asked.

"Different things. Signals to my servants for jobs, creating more as horror attractions open. Others to hunt down nightmares or magic to help the humans out with their own preparations like pumpkins for the last minute buyers later in the day or giving teachers ideas for their kids to do during all the Halloween excitement, fixing costumes or supplies, you know anything that needs to be done that some don't have time to get done." Athena explained while looking over her checklist. As things were crossed off and disappeared more would appear.

"Is this what Christmas is like for you North?" Jack asked him.

"No, it's much more organized, although my two lists do change when necessary. This is chaotic." North responded.

"Well unlike Christmas which is strictly a day for one holiday, my holiday has many different cultures and religions involved which hold different traditions depending on the people. The popularized Halloween came from Samhain, the Pagan new year, but there are still Pagans who use the older traditions as well as other cultures who celebrate today as the day of the dead. Everyone celebrates today differently while most cultures celebrate Christmas in similar ways. They may have different representations as to where the gifts come from but many cultures there are gifts that come in the night or appear somehow. For one person to rule over a holiday like Halloween it can be very chaotic." Athena responded.

Jack looked out the window and into the early morning. The magic had been flying around like this for the past three days straight, some of the magic would jumping into streams of dreamsand, strengthening it.

"You also help Sandy with dreams during Halloween?" Tooth asked.

"When I feel that I need to. Sandy's been working really hard, figure I'd help him out." Athena responded.

"But wouldn't that tire you out?" She questioned.

"Not really." She responded, clearly lying but she didn't look very tired.

"You've been sending out a lot more magic than you usually do on Halloween." Tooth observed.

"Have to work harder to keep the nightmares at bay. Do you have any idea how many horror movies have been playing the past week? Many channels have been playing Halloween movies nonstop, at least one a night. Week of Halloween they're just one after another, nothing else but scary Halloween episodes and movies and the movie theatres playing them one after another. Well besides the theatres playing Rocky Horror Picture Show. That's not scary that's just ridiculously hilarious." Athena replied.

"Rocky Horror Picture Show?" Bunnymund questioned.

"Let's do the time warp again!" The stereo played loudly and cut off.

"What does that song have to do with the movie?" He questioned.

"The song came from the movie. It's that movie where everyone brings rice, toast, waterguns and other stuff and jump up doing the time warp." Jack explained.

"We should go see a showing of it next year, it'll be fun." Athena added.

A shrill whinny of a horse interrupted the conversation and a swarm of nightmares swooped in breaking windows and busting the door open sending everything in the room flying.

"Kozmotis Pitchner you show yourself right now before I hunt you down and show you what your insides look like on the outside!" Athena yelled. She could handle her old inventions and old workspace being wrecked, she didn't use it on a regular basis and most of it was easily fixed. Pitch had messed up what she was presently doing including her organization. to an outside it looked like chaos, but for her she knew where everything was, it's function and when it was needed. Everything had it's place best for her and that's all that mattered to her. Now everything was messed up on Halloween.

"Did that anger you sweetheart?" Pitch's voice said, coming from all directions.

"Don't call me that! Show yourself right now! you just messed up my entire workspace and threw everything out of whack!" She snapped as the nightmares forced herself and the other four Guardians there to the middle of the room.

"Of course you know the organization, if it works for you then why bother fixing it?" He replied while stepping out of the darkness.

"Get out. Go do whatever it is that you do at three in the morning, like sleeping or something. Yeah go sleep maybe you won't be so cranky and mean if you got more sleep." She responded. Pitch rolled his eyes.

"I must have been completely mad when I married you." He said.

"Nope you were blazed out of your mind during the ceremony and then got drunk off your ass during the reception. It was the most hilarious think I have ever seen." Athena responded seriously before raising her wand and blowing the roof out and sent the guardians flying up into the air, North and Bunny were caught by Athena's broom, neither fitting very well so it dumped them on the roof of a nearby building before going back for Athena who grabbed a hold and flew off while blasting some nightmares apart.

"All of these fights are really getting redundant." Bunny commented.

"A fight? No this was merely sabotage and distraction." Pitch responded.

"Distraction? What did you do?" Athena demanded.

"You will find out soon enough." Pitch responded with a laugh before disappearing and the nightmares scattering.

"We have to find Sandy." Jack said immediately.

"We must split up." North said.

"That isn't safe...but we'd find Sandy faster that way." Tooth admitted before everyone went off on their own to find the Guardian of dreams.

Tooth found Sandy first and contacted the others. Sandy was okay but he seemed very tired. Almost everyone had nightmares, adult, child, teenager anyone that associated themselves with Halloween, it wasn't the entire world but it was a large portion. They had gotten that strong in just a few short weeks alone.

"How can we stop Pitch without the help of the kids and their belief?" Jack asked.

"The thing is the children still believe. This isn't the same gain to power, maybe if we could get people to not fear Pitch then it would help stop the nightmares like when Jamie faced the black sand without fear, but that will be very hard to do before Halloween is over. Everything is so messed up and it's all my fault. I should have been keeping an eye on Pitch during Halloween." Athena replied with a frustrated sigh.

"Yeah, yeah this is like the eighth time you've said that. It won't help so for now let's try and do what we can to distract the kids from fear throughout the day. Remind them why Halloween is fun and isn't scary." Jack said, bopping Athena on the head with his staff, causing her hair to become frosty. She shook it off and nodded in agreement.

"Right of course. I'm just wasting time. Let's go." She responded before opening a portal.

"Hey Sandy. this should help you feel better." Athena said, tossing him a bottle with a bright gold liquid in it. Something she made up on the spot to help keep give Sandy more energy, healthy energy not like energy shots. She then opened a portal and allowed it to suck her in and back out at the other end as the rest of the Guardians headed off as well.

Alone in the old prison Pitch Black paced around the globe. He didn't expect the lights to go out, he wasn't even paying the globe any attention. His mid reeled as several different memories ran through it. Only a few but they were enough to stay on his mind. The first time he and Athena kissed, their wedding day, the day Athena discovered that she was pregnant and their daughter's birth.

He couldn't help but smile in amusement at the memory of Katherine's birth. He had been trying to give Athena encouragement through the labor and all while the Midwife took care of her, Athena was fairly bad tempered that day and looking back on it, it was pretty amusing.

_"Kozmotis Pitchner I cannot listen to your encouragement and the midwife at once so silence yourself immediately!" Athena snapped through the ragged breathing._

_"What you should do is be quite during the instructions and let Athena hold your hand like so." The midwife said putting his hand in his wife's, well his fingers._

_"Those are my fingers, not my hand." Kozmotis said confused._

_"Your fingers can withstand better, don't want Athena breaking your hand now do we?" She responded._

_Even with Athena squeezing her husband's fingers so tightly he did not react to the pain, only kept his jaw clenched tightly, knowing full well that was probably nothing compared to the pain Athena was currently experiencing. Once the baby came out the midwife cleaned her off and took care of her and Athena before handing the baby off to Kozmotis to hold safely._

_"I want to hold our daughter." Athena said after a little bit._

_"You need to rest." The midwife responded._

_"I gave birth to that child through blood, sweat and pain I will be allowed to hold her." Athena snapped and then turned to her husband with a sweet pleading expression. He quickly gave in and handed their daughter off to her._

_"You said your mother's name was Katherine right? We should name her Katherine." Athena said. Kozmotis smiled and sat by the two people he cared most for._

Immediately a loud ringing filled his ears and pulled him from the memories, forcing him to shove them to the side and cease caring about the few memories he had gained.

**Bonjour:** Sorry, sorry, sorry for taking so long I had a hiccup of writers block at the beginning of the week. Note I nor my sister has reviewed this so do not be surprised by the mistakes, sorry Vivian but I wanted to post it now because I've prolonged posting long enough. Another note I have recently discovered that Katherine is not the name of Pitch's daughters name (from the books) but sine I already named their daughter Katherine (which I would have kept regardless of the canon name and idea since this story is based off the movie with some book details, not based off the books). Forget her real name, I'll look it up later but she becomes Mother Nature, awesome right?

Also the OC's I only got a few suggestions, I thank those who sent them and I plan to use all of them:

**Mikomi121's** idea, I do in fact have a character that could work for your idea

** 's** OC Crystal

**Phantom of the Black Pearl's** OC who shall remain unnamed for now because of reasons

my sister (**VivieAnne**) volunteered her OC but has yet to give me real info on her...soo yeah

and **moonlight phonex101** had asked about when the characters would be announced but I don't think you sent me anything unless you were just curious.

If anyone wants to send in more characters that is fine. Note the more characters I get sent in the less part they will have in the story as a whole but I am willing to write side chapters once I finish the story as a whole if you so desire but I need them immediately. Please and thank you.

Thanks to those who have sent in ideas/OC's


	12. Chapter 12: Defeated

Chapter 12 Defeated

_Athena reached up to finish nailing a plank above her, trying to avoid using the ladder as much as possible. Suddenly she was swept off her feet from behind. Knowing who it was who had snuck up on her she couldn't help but laugh._

_"You know that wasn't very wise, I have a hammer and a nail in my hand. You could have caused one of us to get hurt." Athena said to Kozmotis. The two had been together for about seven months now but it had only taken two months for either to realize that they had found who they wanted to spend the rest of their lives with._

_"You're careful. I trust that you know how to get through a day without hurting yourself." He said teasingly._

_"Then you clearly have too much confidence in me. Can you please put me down now? I want to get this thing nailed up before it falls apart." She replied. He set her back on her feet and she went back to hammering the nails where they needed to go. The second she finished he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her into a hug._

_"Well you seem to be in a very good mood today." She remarked with a smile._

_"I guess I am in a pretty good mood. Why don't you stop for the day? We should go to the beach for the rest of the day?" He suggested._

_"But you usually do not like the beach." Athena said confused._

_"But you do like it. And as you have observed I am in a good mood today. Besides I know a part that is difficult to get to. No one knows about it so we won't have to worry about the ships, workers or others around." He replied._

_"Well...alright." She agreed. Once ready they headed out until they arrived at the river and followed it downstream where it dumped into a large pond that led to the ocean. The area below was surrounded by cliff on three sides. The water dumped into the pond below and a shallow stream pushed freshwater out into the ocean while the waves of the ocean pushed salt water into the pond with sand lining the water._

_"So how are we supposed to get down General?" Athena asked._

_"I'm glad you asked." He replied and wrapped an arm around her waist after picking up a thick rope._

_"Oh no, you are not doing what I think you're doing are you?" She asked while wrapping her arms around him._

_"That would depend on what you think I am doing." He responded and jumped right off the cliff and slowly jumped off the cliff side as they went down and landed on the beach._

_"Well that wasn't as bad as I feared." She remarked._

_"You have no trust in me do you?" He questioned teasingly._

_"You? Yes. The rope? No." She responded._

_"I can understand that I suppose." He replied. Athena set her bag down on the ground and started pulling things out._

_"So what possessed you to come up with this?" She asked._

_"Well it is a nice day." He started but looked like there was more he was going to say but decided against it. Athena choose not to press, he would tell her when he was ready to, but it did confuse her immensely as to why he was there. She had invited him to the beach before and he declined, that did not bother her once he explained that he did not like the beach very much._

Athena sat crouched at the top of one of the taller buildings of the town, wand in hand and eyes flickering all around, using a spell to see through her head behind her. It gave her a headache to do this but at the present time she ignored it. She had called for help, finally being able to find who she had been trying to contact and maybe could help. Although some of them were...unpredictable like herself.

She heard the flap of wings and saw behind her a young man, looked like he was about in his mid twenties, with blonde hair, deep sea blue eyes and a smirk that always suggested he was up to something. He had off white wings, as if they use to be pure white but had started to discolor from struggle and wear. He carried an odd sword, the hilt had a smoky but a little see through look with a few red and blue jewels imbedded into it while the blade looked like it was made of glass, but Athena knew better, the blade of the sword was made of diamond and could be incredibly sharp.

Despite having been thrown out of Heaven for disagreeing with God he was still able to keep his position as a Guardian Angle, he just wasn't assigned to anyone in particular. He could choose who he protected and watched over. In Athena's opinion he didn't always take his position as seriously as he should. Her friend Nixie who had been a spirit for only two years did his job better than he did.

"Long time no see Athena. having some trouble with Pitch eh?" He asked.

"Hello Tanjiro. How is your cousin?" Athena said.

"Fine I suppose. I don't see her much." Tanjiro replied as an eagle landed on the roof as Athena stood up to face the two. The eagle morphed into a girl with violet eyes and dark curly brown hair. She wore a blue cocktail dress, similar to the orange one Athena herself was wearing, however this girl didn't wear shoes. Athena couldn't help but be reminded of Nixie when around this spirit despite their many differences.

"Thank you for coming Crystal, how are you doing?" Athena asked her with a small smile.

"Fine." Crystal replied shyly. Usually Crystal was okay around Athena but she knew Tanjiro and Crystal had never met.

"Crystal this is Tanjiro, don't hesitate to tell him when he's being an idiot, he can be a goof at times. I'm surprised he and Jack haven't met yet." Athena said to introduce them.

Tanjiro rolled his eyes and said, "It will be interesting to meet the Guardian of fun."

"You said you needed help. Why ask us?" Crystal asked.

"Well for one thing, you're two of the few I could find and trust enough to ask for help. For another you're the only two who are willing to try to help."

"What about Nixie? Aren't you friends with her? We have similar abilities right?" Crystal asked.

"She's busy doing his job." Athena replied casually while jutting a thumb at Tanjiro and added, "Along with her own self assigned duties. And she doesn't want to get mixed up into this stuff of picking sides and fighting. She wants to stay on civil terms with everyone so I didn't bother asking."

"Hey I do my job." Tanjiro said defensively.

"You make jokes all the time, learn to take one." Athena replied while rolling her eyes with a sigh.

"So what do we need to do?" Crystal asked in a soft spoken tone.

"Right. Well we only have a few hours left until evening, we barely managed to keep the nightmares and fearlings at bay the past day when Halloween came on other parts of the world but this side of the world goes a little crazier in response to this time of the year." Athena explained.

"How will keeping the nightmares and fearlings at bay during the night keep Pitch from gaining strength?" Tanjiro questioned.

"We keep them weak then it'll make Pitch weaker for the time being. For the rest of the day I just need you to help us remind the kids why Halloween has turned into a fun holiday. not one to be feared. Pitch and the fearlings have been under our radar for the past two days now but not so much the nightmares. We'll be okay with just Pitch and the fearlings but with so much black sand and nightmares we don't have much hope without help." She replied.

"And if we fail?" Crystal asked. Asking the question that weighed heaviest on everyone's minds.

"Then it may be almost impossible to stop Pitch from overrunning the world with fear and darkness." She answered bluntly.

They were silent for a little bit before Tanjiro opened his mouth again, "What's it like fighting your husband? I mean serious combat fighting. Must be really odd."

Athena merely shot him a glare in response before tossing him a communicator similar to the others and handed one to Crystal and explained how to use it before they headed out in their separate ways.

Throughout the rest of the day things were relatively quiet. Children were having fun with doing Halloween crafts in class and ready to go trick or treating. Teenagers and young adults were ready to dash out of class to get into their costumes and go to movies, parties, trick or treating, haunted houses or trails or to go scare others.

Nothing really happened until about seven or eight when it actually started to get dark. Athena was already busy with the varying things she did on Halloween night but because of the nightmares and fearlings it just made things that much harder. Her communicator started to beep constantly later in the night and several times she split into her two forms and fought like that.

Everyone was quickly tiring, especially Sandy who was already sending out dream sand. Almost immediately after it reached the children the sand was infected, creating more nightmares, even worse than the night before. With each scream or reaction of fright meant a stronger fearling that was surly hovering nearby.

While moving Athena put spells on different objects, charming them to fight and counter the black sand, or as much as magic could, while moving from one destination to another. Everyone was spread out, Sandy was further East where it was later in the night while North and Bunnymund were more to the west. Tooth, Jack, Tanjiro, Crystal and Athena traveled to where they needed to be, often running into each other. Jack had managed to talk to Jamie and his friends about the situation and they did what they could in changing the sand from black to gold.

Athena noticed North's sleigh and flew over to it to see an exhausted Jack and Crystal.

"You two okay?" Athena asked. They both nodded in response.

"Do we even have any idea as to what we're up against? How we're doing? We're all so spread out along with all of the Nightmares and Fearlings. You must have some idea don't you Athena?" Jack questioned.

Athena chewed on her lip before responding, "Don't ask question you don't want to know the answers to."

"So things are not going well." Crystal replied.

"I did manage to contact a few others for help and Nixie is helping Sandy out as much as she can and two others are doing what they can, but that's about it. I really don't know how Pitch has gotten so strong even with using Halloween to his advantage, I mean sure it really helps him but not this much." Athena replied.

"You think He's been gaining some strength from another source? Or someone helping him to do so?" Crystal concluded. Athena nodded.

"Well it doesn't matter right now does it? What matters is knocking him down few notches right?" North replied.

"Right. Good luck." She answered before diving off the sleigh and jumping back onto her broom.

Only a few minutes had passed before she was knocked off her broom.

"Ow!" She yelped putting a hand to the side of her head where she could feel a warm sticky substance and held her hand away to see the blood on her hand from the side of her face. She whistled loudly to call her broom back, as soon as it was close enough she grabbed it and pulled herself back up, almost being knocked off again and looked off to the side to see Pitch standing on a cloud of black sand.

"You know knocking me off my broom is not going to kill me!" She yelled over to him while flying closer to the ground in case she were to fall off it wouldn't be a very long fall.

"It can certainly keep you out of commission for a little while though." He responded but didn't try again, instead a swirl of black sand surrounded her like a ball, stopping her descent with the nightmares throwing jabs and blows while she struck back, standing on her broom and whacking them with a tennis racket and changing into swirls of magic and gold sand. In her other hand was a smaller version of the machine she had created before that she and Sandy has used to suck the black sand and change back to gold sand, of course it didn't work as well without Sandy but Athena figured that it was better than nothing.

Pitch appeared behind Athena saying, "You're certainly determined, even lasting longer than the Tooth Fairy despite your weakening state."

Athena whirled around and hit him in the side of the head, catching him off guard. His surprised, yet amused slivery gold eyes met Athena's fierce blue blazing ones.

"What did you do to Tooth?" She demanded, panting heavily and throwing small cherry-bomb like devices at the black sand around them while turning to try and find Pitch who had disappeared again.

"I would worry less about your friend and more about yourself." He said right in her ear, standing behind her once again. A stab of pain spread from her back to her abdomen right in between her ribs. She coughed and fought to breath looking down to see a black blade sticking out from in between her rib cage, her own blood dripping off of it.

"First time literally being stabbed in the back." She said sounding like she was going to laugh about it. Pitch pulled the blade and she coughed up and spit out blood instead. He turned her around to face him and held her face close to his.

"You were foolish to believe that you could stop me. You have failed darling." He said smoothly.

"Just-because one battle...is lost does not mean that...the war is." She replied thought shallow breaths.

"You've always been very foolish haven't you?" He questioned.

"Damn," She coughed, "Straight." She was quickly fading into unconsciousness, her mind becoming foggy and the pain spreading and clouding her mind.

"You lose and you will never have a chance at beating me again. I hope you have frightful nightmares during your slow and painful recovery dear. Here is something to keep me in your thoughts." He pulled her to him and kissed her before giving her a simple push. The black sand allowed her to fall through it and to the ground.

**I'm baaaack!** Okay so this was a chapter to more or less start to introduce the new characters. They'll play a bigger role and the other two will be introduced soon.

I am so sorry I'm so slow I don't know what my writing brain is doing to me! Uh...oh yeah! If anyone is a tumblr user I just thought I should put it out there that I created an ask/rp blog for Athena and Nixie (my other RotG oc who I mention briefly in this chapter). Athena's tag is athenarulerofhalloween (i'm pretty sure), and if you wanna know Nixie's I put it in the most recent of her chapters, or you can ask me if you want to know.

Yes I did mention Nixie, no I am not crossing the two stories over because their plots don't work for crossing over but every-so-often I do mention them in each other's stories and they may be featured sometimes but not enough for anyone to need to really know anymore about them than what is mentioned.

Um...I think that's all for now, I'll be adding my sis and my friend's oc's soon and Crystal and Tanj will be playing a bigger part as well. Thank you all for reading I love you all! and Happy Valentine's Day/Early Valentine's Day!


	13. Notes: Im' sorry I'm a terrible person

I know I'm a terrible person. I apologize for taking so long on the next chapter, I just finished with class for the semester and it's been a crazy and busy one. I am finishing the new chapter and hope to finish it no later than tomorrow (if it is not up then you are free to come yell at me...although you are anyways).


	14. Chapter 13: Fear and Darkness

Chapter 13 Darkness and Fear

_Throughout the day the two played in the water or sat in the sand simply talking or eating. Athena had gotten stung by a jellyfish and that was when they decided to stay out of the water for the rest of the day, or at least any deeper than knee depth since Athena needed to leave the sting under the water until it felt better._

_"Good thing salt-water helps healing." She commented while inspecting her arm seeing the angry red marks of the sting but it stopped hurting for the time being._

_"Have you been stung by those things before? You don't seem to be affected by it much." Kozmotis commented._

_"I have twice before, but the last two times were worse than this, I even got sick." She replied as they walked over to the blanket they had laid out and sat down. Kozmotis took her hand in his and lightly trailed a finger along the marks and lightly kissed the worst one. Athena smiled and leaned against him resting her head on his shoulder relaxing._

_"I love you." He said softly._

_"I love you too." Athena replied with a smile._

_"May I ask you something?" He asked._

_"You just did, but of course, you do not need to ask if you can ask me something." Athena replied teasingly. He chuckled and wrapped his arms around her wait laying back on the blanket, taking her with him. She giggled and rested her head on his chest asking, "So what is it that you want to ask me?"_

_He waited a few seconds before responding, enjoying the warm day and holding her in his arms._

_"Would you consider the idea of us wedding?" He asked._

_"You want to wed? Me?" Athena asked surprised._

_"Always the tone of surprise. Yes. I would be very honored if you would consider marrying me." He answered._

_"I would love to marry you Kozmotis." She replied and propped herself up on her elbow and kissed him softly. He ran his fingers through her hair and placed his hand on the back of her head to deepen the kiss._

_He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her down so that she was laying on him. They stayed that way for a long time and watched the sun set before deciding to leave and took their time in going home, enjoying a nighttime stroll in the moonlight. They ended up at their usual meeting area by the river._

_"We plan to go home and end up stopping." Athena said teasingly._

_"Going home means going in separate directions, I don't feel like being separate right now." He replied and pulled her onto his lap, brushed her hair to the side and rested his chin on her shoulder._

_"Alright. It's a nice night, I don't mind being out late." She answered with a smile as the two sat in silence listening to the sound of the water rushing by and lit by the moonlight shining down and reflecting off the rushing water's surface casting more light all over the place. Athena was soon lulled to sleep by the peacefulness. Kozmotis was fighting sleep as well and decided that it was time to leave and carried Athena home, put her in bed and laid beside her before allowing sleep to take over as well._

"What happened to Athena?" Lily, a friend of Athena's, asked. She was a nature/spring spirit with a strong air of innocence about her with curly dark hair, pale skin, average height and a thin frame and wore a light blue and yellow sundress. She looked at her friend with worry, Athena was lying on the bed with her ankles and wrists restrained to the bed the way some hospital patients need to be so they didn't pull at tubes.

"Pitch stabbed her. I don't understand why the sand didn't consume her or why she didn't become a fearling." Bunny commented.

"You become a fearling by allowing your fears to consume you or are manipulated into allowing your fears to consume you or there is likely a chance that being tainted with black sand could cause that too, but I expect Athena's will is strong enough to resist and had magical defenses against that, but probably not the illness and slow healing that it has caused." Tanjiro responded.

"Why is she restrained like that?" Lily questioned.

"Athena has proven to be an incredibly restless sleeper, it was not helping the wound at all." He answered.

"Okay so where is Tooth? How is she doing?" Lily continued.

"In the next room, I'm not sure how she is doing, Crystal and Jack are tending to her right now." Bunny responded before leaving the room to find North. Lily stayed by with Athena who's expression was scrunched up in an expression of pain and fear, sweat beaded down her face and neck so she changed the damp cloth that was now just as hot as her head.

"Could Jack help to get the fever down?" Lily asked.

"What? you wanna ask Jack if he'll be willing to lay on her until her fever is down?" Tanjiro asked jokingly to lighten the mood.

Lily rolled her eyes.

"No not necessarily that." She answered.

"I'll go get him." He replied and left the room as Bunny returned.

"Do ye think ye can heal 'er?" He asked Lily.

"Maybe help speed it up a little bit, but not very much and only the wound, not the illness." Lily answered.

"Could yah heal Tooth?" He asked.

"I'll need to go see her to know but if she is only injured then yes I could probably heal her easier than Athena." She answered.

"Why don' we go see what ye can do to help Tooth." He suggested as Crystal and Jack came into the room.

"Where'd Tanj run off to?" Bunny asked.

"Went to go help North out with something." Crystal replied.

"North said the Yetis will be able to help, they are good with medicine." Jack replied and gingerly put a hand on Athena's head and the back of her neck.

"Oh wow, she is really warm." Jack remarked. Several minutes later Lily poked her head into the room, "Tooth is alright and is awake now. According to North the Yeti's say that she'll need to rest for a few days."

"The rest of us should help in any way we can against Pitch and find out how he ended up becoming so strong so quickly.

_Athena woke up in her own bed, feeling arms wrapped around her, glancing to see Kozmotis lying beside her asleep, she smiled a little and slowly started to sit up but was pulled back down by her lover._

_"Hey I need to get up." She said with a laugh._

_"Just stay here." Kozmotis replied sleepily, wrapping her arms around her tighter._

_"Come on Pitch let me up." She replied._

_"I'm comfortable just like this." He answered while nuzzling the back of her neck. She worked to pry his arms off her to get up when she was thrown back down roughly and pinned to the bed. In the back of Athena's mind she knew there was something wrong with this memory, Pitch hadn't done that. She looked up at him and the Pitch she knew started changing into a grotesque black figure with intense gold and silver eyes, it wasn't even Pitch Black._

_**"I told you to stay put." The figure said in a harsh cold tone, like metal scraping hard on ice, grating on Athena's eardrums.**_

_**Dark tendrils extended from the figure wrapping around her, holding her down tightly, slowly constricting tighter each time she struggled. More wrapped around her neck and started to strangle her. **_

_**She managed to free one arm and curled her fingers between the tendrils and her neck, trying to pull them off and fought against the rest but had little success. The figure laughed cruelly as it changed back to taking Kozmotis' form with a twisted sadistic smile.**_

_**Athena managed to pry the dark tendrils off and get up, taking off towards the mouth of the cave and had to stop. As soon as she stepped outside the ground at her feet fell as a deep, dark chasm opened up. She took a few steps back for a running start and jumped, grabbing the edge on the other side. She dug her nails into the ground for leverage to pull herself up and tried to find foot-holes when the creature, still retaining her loves' appearance, suddenly appeared, standing only a few inches away from her hand, immediately stomping down on her right hand hard. **_

_**She winced and cried out in pain, being forced to let go. He gave a wicked smile before bringing his foot down on her left hand multiple times until she could not hang on any longer, let go and fell down into the darkness.**_

_**She had no idea if she was still falling or not. it was completely dark all around. Absolutely no light. Completely pitch black. After a little bit she tried to move around to discover that she wasn't falling but likely suspended somehow.**_

_**The harsh, creepy, cold laugh echoed from all directions, she didn't know if it was in her heard or not. It made her skin crawl and her heart beat faster.**_

_**Athena took off running, having no particular direction in mind, only the need to get away, the fight or flight instincts, in this case it was flight.**_

_**Ahead she could see a light, normally going towards the light people would say to stay away from it but she could not stand to be in such darkness any longer, not with that thing.**_

_**"Mommy!" **_

_**Athena's heart stopped, recognizing the scream. She slid to a stop and looked back, her daughter's voice very distinct to her, even if she hadn't heard it in a very long time.**_

_**"Mommy don't leave me!" The cry came again. She resisted the urge to run back to find her daughter, in the back of her mind she was reminded of her husband's own downfall. Her feet were grounded to the floor and she couldn't move where she was, back towards her daughter's voice or away and closer to the light.**_

_**"It's not real. Just-just a trick." She whispered to herself.**_

_**"Mommy! Mommy come back don't leave me here! Please don't leave me! I'm scared! Help me!" The voice cried out again, hitting Athena deep and hard, immediately she ran back, following the voice until she saw a little girl with dark wavy hair, she was sitting on the ground in a ball crying. She hadn't seen that little girl in such a long time, her mothering instincts took over, ignoring the instincts to flee as she knelt down and pulled her little girl into her arms.**_

_**"It's alright Katherine. I'm here." Athena said soothingly while stroking her daughter's hair. The cold laugh returned from all directions as something stepped from the shadows and took Pitch Black's form. A cruel smirk played on his lips.**_

_**"Easily tricked, just like your pathetic husband." He said in the creature's cold, harsh voice layering over his own.**_

_**Katherine's small hand reached up, immediately grabbing Athena's hair and yanked her head back roughly, her eyes darkening and going completely black as the black spread like cracks in the little girl's skin, breaking it apart and tearing out of the disguise with a harsh ripping sound and towering over her. A dark substance, like a mixture of blood and pure darkness dripped from it's mouth and razor sharp, gray teeth. The ting's head was about three times larger than a normal head and it's teeth were the size of butcher knives.**_

_**Athena shoved the creature away, scrambling to get up and took off running again, tears brimming her eyes as she ran towards the light. Her heart aching and her mind reeling as she cursed her stupidity for allowing herself to be so easily deceived.**_

_**Just as she reached it the tendrils of black lashed out at her, grabbing her ankle and knocking her down with a group of Nightmares swooping in to surround her. The black sand formed under her to drag her away but she fought against it, breaking free and had one foot over the line into the light.**_

_**The darkness grabbed her again, immediately dragging her back into the darkness as she fought relentlessly despite it being futile. More tendrils grabbed her and continued to drag her deep into the black. In front of her stood Pitch Black with his cruel, sadistic smile, watching her as she was drug deeper into the depths of his realm. He waved a hand, completely snuffing out the small ounce of hope Athena had of escape.**_

_**His laugh, mixed with the creatures (or the fearlings) echoed and came from all directions and taunted Athena as she continued to fight to be free and resist the darkness trying to crawl into her mind to find anything it can use to further torment her.**_

_**"Always the fighter love. You will give up soon. Once I find more to use against you, you will break and you will not be waking up anytime soon. Maybe if we're lucky you will never wake up and the fun will never have to end." The voices said, continuing to layer over one another as it whispered in her ear. Sharp nails scratched at her skin as she fought for freedom.**_

_**"Mommy? Why won't you help me?" What appeared to be Katherine appeared and was being tormented before her, crying and terrified, even though Athena knew it was a trick it still pulled at her heartstrings fiercely, causing the brimming tears to fill her eyes, blur her vision and spill over. She tried looking away and fighting to block the sound out with her hands but the darkness would not let her. Forcing her to watch and listen to her daughter's terrified screams and cries of fear and pain.**_

_**"NO!" Athena screamed.**_

I'm so sorry!

I was having a hard time in working with Athena's nightmare. I wanted to do something really creepy, but kind of unconsciously decided to save that stuff for later chapters and this one is kind of the beginning nightmares, throughout these next chapters I will continue with the same opening, throw in some nightmares for Athena here and there but I plan to focus on the other characters more too, with the new ones and the guardians becoming more acquainted and such. If you want any romance among the other characters please let me know because otherwise there is really only one paring that will be developing among them so tell me and I'll work them in as well (I'm kind of a hopeless romantic deep down). You will be finding out exactly what is going on with Pitch's super fast gain to power (just haven't decided exactly when yet, but soon) and as always there will continue to be fighting :)


	15. Notes and Apologies

Notes and apologies

This is going on all of my stories here, I deeply apologize in taking so long with updates, I assure you I have not forgotten any of my stories and I am not going to stop updating it is just taking me a while. I have times where I get writer's block (very badly as you can see) and even if I have ideas (which I in fact do for all of them) I just cannot get myself to write and I have been starting to get busy again with job hunting and helping family and all that stuff.

I deeply appreciate those who have been sticking with me even after taking so long on my updates, I am trying to finish a new chapter for all of my stories, but I'm not sure how good they'd end up being if I do seriously force myself and I am trying to put off other stories (that aren't posted) until I finish with all updates.

Again I am very, very, very sorry I have not forgotten any of my stories I'm just an idiot who can't get past the block.

Also a random note I might go through and redo each story (oldest to newest), correct any past mistakes, not make too many changes just clean them up and throw in more detail I might have left out and want to add or throw in some extra story and such but I will not do that until I've finished the stories (some will end sooner than others).

If anyone has any ideas they want to see in the story feel free to share them with me (specify story please), it might be able to help me get through the blocks as well and if it is not something I want to put into the main story then I can still write a side chapter with it.

Any characters I use that others have sent in will have a bigger role as the story progresses but since they were not part of the original story-line it will take a few chapters and such as minor characters before they play larger roles and they will progressively become bigger characters and I thank those who are allowing me to use their characters.

...I think that is all, I mostly wanted to apologize for being so slow and assure everyone that I have not abandoned them I'm just having a hard time with writer's block (it's not just the ones on here it is also every story I have, original and fanfiction). I do check the email fanfiction sends things to regularly so you can always send me a message and I will be back to you within the day (usually sooner unless I'm really busy) or I am also regularly on tumblr (send a message if you want any of my URL's although one is an rp account...that I'm on most of the time), so that is another place where you can quickly get a hold of me.

I'm sorry again and thank you for sticking with me and being patient, I really don't deserve readers like you all and I love you! 3


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